


Days of the Song

by goldenletters



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Arya Is Not Deus Ex Machina, Daenerys Targaryen Is Not a Mad Queen, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Mostly Dialogue, Not necessarily because of death, Tragedy of Sorts, Unreliable Narrator, With A Twist, in my opinion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-26
Updated: 2020-08-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:14:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24568282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenletters/pseuds/goldenletters
Summary: A Season 7 fix-it of sorts based on one single change that triggers a different set of events: Daenerys does not disembark at Dragonstone but at Dorne. She visits Jorah at the Citadel where she meets Samwell Tarly, who convinces her to join the fight against the Night King.I took some of the main conflicts and motivations of certain characters and changed the dialogues and scenarios just to play a little with what could've been.
Relationships: Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Comments: 61
Kudos: 85





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Tragedy according to wikipedia is a form of drama based on human suffering that invokes an accompanying catharsis or pleasure in audiences. That's the type of feeling I want to explore here alongside some dialogue I think it could've worked better with the same motivation. 
> 
> There will be some minor other pairings like Arya/Gendry, Sansa/Theon, Jaime/Brienne, GW/Missandei.
> 
> It's not something that needs to be tagged. Unless you consider so.
> 
>   
> By the way, in this story, I left out Dorne's horrible plot of the show. Here Ellaria has only murdered Myrcella, not Prince Doran or Trystane.

**PROLOGUE**

_Everything is blurred from a distant perspective as if the eyes wanted to see something so wonderful that it should not be for the eyes of a stranger. Or maybe it's because there are mostly whites and blues, voids of colors and dancing silhouettes around a warm fire that embraces the spirit._

_The laughter of some children accompanies the dreamy atmosphere. There are several although it is not possible to see how many exactly. All good places have children, there is no exception here._

_A tough-looking man walks to approach the fire. Although it seems part of the cold, he likes to warm up near the fire and listen to its crackle. A delicate hand rests on his shoulder and a smile is drawn on his face: there is his beloved waiting for him by the fire._

_Ice._

_Fire._

_Children._

_A family of ice and fire._


	2. Snow and Sun

**I.**

**Snow and Sun**

**Winterfell.**

_King Jon,_

_I, Daenerys of House Targaryen, pledge all my forces and resources to the warfare against the threat Beyond the Wall. When it's appropriate, I will send part of my troops with the necessary mined dragonglass to start with the preparations for the war. My ally, Lady Olenna Tyrell, is sending the food to feed the combined forces._

_My single condition is to allow us to celebrate the trial of Cersei Lannister in Winterfell, where she will face charges for her misdeeds against your family and those affected in the destruction of the Sept of Baelor._

_The matter of the independence of the North concerns the stability of the rest of the six kingdoms and eventually will have to be deal with, although I give you my word that that time will come after the true threat is defeated, and not before._

_I wish you good fortune in the wars to come._

_Queen Daenerys of House Targaryen._

His brow furrowed was indicative enough for Ser Davos to understand that what he had just read had astonished him. Jon could not convey a coherent thought to communicate to his Hand what the parchment said. All he could do was extend it and let the old sailor draw his own conclusions.

"So," Ser Davos spoke after taking a glimpse of it, "Daenerys Targaryen finally returned to Westeros."

The general idea was that. The last scion of House Targaryen had reached the shores of the continent.

The last of her house and the only owner of three full-grown dragons, Jon thought. Which could involve something equally beneficial as terribly, depending on whether Daenerys turned out to be, or what the rumors said or what her uncle Aemon thought of her.

"What are you going to do?" Davos asked knowing that the news was intended to add further uncertainty to their already unsettling situation.

Jon snorted and outstretched his arms.

"You are my hand! Tell me what I do with this information."

"It seems like good news."

_Seems_ was the keyword. He looked at his desk again where rested another scroll. Samwell's. In this letter, he informed Jon about the dragonglass mines in Dragonstone and about his surprising encounter with Daenerys at the Citadel.

" _... the gods are on our side,_ " recited Sam's message. " _Daenerys, her dragons, and her resources just when we needed it most_."

Luckily Sam didn't skimp on details and had described the meeting with this young, claimant queen as a miracle. As Sansa has long warned him, things in the south had not stopped going because the world up here was about to end. And Jon was smart enough to know that there were conflicts that needed to be resolved in the face of the impending arrival of the Night King.

"And what if it's a trap?" He wondered, with Sansa's voice in his head. "Her family and mine have an established history."

Ser Davos sat back, fiddling with the parchment between his fingers.

"Did she already conquer King's Landing?"

Jon returned to read his friend's missive. There was no mention of a reconquest. 

"I imagine Cersei Lannister has nothing to do against a woman who comes with three dragons, two foreign armies, and the support of the Reach and Dorne," he pointed out. Jon sighed and swallowed hard. "Neither do we," he stared at Davos with a stern expression, "if she comes up here, we will have little to do against her invasion."

"But we need allies and aid to face the army of the dead," Ser Davos remembered to him.

"Aye, I know, I know,” Jon stood to pace the room. “It's just that I never thought this could happen so soon. The last thing Sam told me is that she was under siege in Slaver's Bay." 

"She is certainly not, anymore."

The last time he had thought of Daenerys Targaryen, he actually thought about her dragons and how idyllic it would be to have them in their side to face the dead.

"What do we know about her? Is she…?"

"Mad?" Davos completed the sentence. "That depends on what you consider mad. I mean, Tywin Lannister was not someone you will call a madman but was equally ruthless, feared, despised, and loved. A conqueror, Jon." 

“She has come to Westeros with the intentions to reclaim the throne of her father, the throne of the Seven Kingdoms - we are one of those kingdoms! And she already has the support of two powerful ones, and to make things colorful, we need her aid and she’s offering that without demanding me to bend the knee. I am a fool if I do not question this sudden stroke of luck.” Jon returned to the desk. He scratched his beard as he contemplated the message once more. "I have to tell Sansa, and see how to inform this to the lords."

Ser Davos growled in disapproval.

"Sansa will tell Littlefinger," he said with a stern voice. 

Jon scowled at the mention of the name of that man.

"And what will he do with this information?"

"I don't know but I would not trust in him, Jon." 

What Davos was really trying to tell him, like several days ago, is to stop giving Sansa so much authority. Both had argued that her behavior was becoming increasingly hostile and that Littlefinger's influence could be the reason for that.

Jon felt he owed it to her for being the last trueborn Stark. Winterfell belonged to her more than would ever belong to him. He had to remind himself that, every day, regardless that the lords had chosen him over her. 

In any case, those problems would have to be set aside until at least the threat of the dead was eradicated, as Daenerys Targaryen put it in her letter.

* * *

**Sunspear**.

A bead of sweat ran down his nape and he wiped it with his hand. Then he rubbed it against his new acquired, elegant garment, adapted to Dorne's hot and humid climate. Tyrion crossed the hall that led to the Queen's chambers and entered in her office with the lightness that only a man she trusted could allow himself. She was at her desk revising her correspondence, her attention monopolized by her administrative activities. The playful and youthful demeanor that she allowed herself from time to time had been left across the Narrow Sea.

He walked in, sitting across her.

"You are oddly calm, my Queen," he commented.

She did not lift her stare to answer, "You are oddly confident, my Lord."

He hummed.

"Don't we have something to do? Some conquering to do?"

"If a sword and armor are what you wish for, I can provide you with them and send you to the first line alongside with Grey Worm."

"We both know that I wasn't particularly included in your inner circle because of my _unprecedented skills_ with the sword. Let us be honest with each other, Daenerys. What are we doing?"

Ever since their arrival at the place they both called home and longed for, she has been strangely passive and patient. On the one hand, it was a sign that she was maturing as a leader, not being seduced by onslaught ideas like those of Yara Greyjoy and Lady Olenna. On the other hand, it was sort of exasperating for him, how much she was letting time run.

"Waiting," she replied, sharply.

He scoffed.

"Haven't you waited enough?"

"I did,” she said this time with eyes upon him. “That's why waiting for a little more doesn't hurt me." She stood up and brought wine and two cups to the table. One for her, one for him. "Vengeance can blur one's senses, my Lord,” she purred the wine to him first almost overflowing it, then she filled her cup. “You should know that."

"You've spent too much time with that useless bald eunuch," he complained and because half of her army fit on the depiction, he clarified, "Lord Varys, I mean."

The queen sat back on her chair and look at him pointedly.

"You told me to trust and listen to him, my Lord," she reminded him. "But never more to him than to you, right? That's why when he advised me against seeking justice against Ellaria Sand you stopped being that sure or your own judgment."

His stomach churned and his mettle quivered with the memory of that woman.

"You crucified one hundred and sixty three Masters, some more guilty than others because they killed the same amount in slave children." He swallowed the wine, hard. "That hideous woman killed Myrcella. A child. An innocent."

She raised an eyebrow, in earnest expression. 

"I don't like what she did neither. But Prince Doran promised me justice."

"That boring piece of--"

"Tyrion," she chided him.

He put his goblet on her desk with a thud.

"Daenerys, is something bothering you? Have I done something to offend you?" he asked, his voice mingled with despair. "I thought having old Jorah here would lift your mood and spirit but--"

"I am not mad at you," she hurried in. "I am mad at myself because I thought it would be easier than this." 

"I told you you are part of the great game now, and it's never easy."

"No. It's not," she agreed. 

As he was about to insist on taking action against Ellaria Sand, Missandei made her way into the room. 

"Your grace, it's time."

Tyrion turned around on the chair.

"Time for what?" he asked. 

"Thank you, Missandei," Daenerys replied from behind. He turned to see her getting up and taking her papers away. "I have to do something." 

"What? Da-" he talked but she was already pacing towards the door. Tyrion climb off the chair and followed her behind. "Your grace, why didn't you inform me of this?"

"Your sister summoned Lord Tarly of Horn Hill and offered him lands and titles if he rebels against his liege." They were crossing the long hall in the direction to the main entrance. "Lord Varys confided me this information last night."

"And what are you going to do?" Tyrion asked, still in shock with Vary keeping this from him. 

Daenerys turned around and grinned. 

"I'm going to play the Great Game, Lord Tyrion."

* * *

**Winterfell**.

"This can't mean anything good," Sansa stated, ill-at-ease. "I know Lady Olenna. She was good to me when I was in King's Landing. She and Queen Margaery were the only people I could call my friends, I wept for her when I heard about her passing. However, I assure you that the Queen of Thorns is not a woman who will choose the wrong side," she looked down at the message Jon put in the table of the library. "And right now, anyone against Daenerys is on the wrong side."

In her message, there were no signs of animosity, though. On the contrary, she was offering her collaboration without demanding anything in return, but making it clear that the issue of independence was still something uncertain _for her and her allies_. 

"When the Night King comes there will be only two sides. The dead and the living,” Jon reiterated.

" _If_ he comes," Sansa emphasized.

Jon gazed upon her with discontent.

"Sansa, do you believe me, right?"

She sighed.

"I do, Jon. But the Wall has stood for thousands of years and he is on the other side," she took the parchment and soothe it. "Daenerys and her dragons are just days apart. The threat could come from any side."

"She did not demand us to bend the knee as Cersei did," Jon recalled.

" _Yet,"_ she said with a sharp tone. 

“And she’s bringing Cersei, apparently.”

He thought he saw in her the beam of a smile before she had shifted to her earnest distrust expression again.

"I want to believe what she says it's true and that the matter will be left to the improbable case will win this war against the undead-" he tried to explain.

"Littlefinger said she committed atrocities in Essos. Its economy plummeted when she conquered Slaver's Bay," Sansa cut in.

"She was liberating the slaves."

"Or she was conquering them. In any case, we are not slavers nor slaves, and the lords will not be happy about this. That can assure you."

Jon leaned back in his seat and pinched the bridge of his nose, exhausted. Talking to Sansa was not much different from brooding over how he was unfitted to this work. A fleeting image of Lady Catelyn flashed through his mind. 

"What do you suggest then?" he asked her. Her criticism was more efficient than her contributions, so when he asked that question, Sansa became evasive.

"I will love to see Cersei being killed here where everything started.”

A part of him also rejoiced at the idea of ending the Lannisters after all the pain they had caused to the Starks. 

“As long as I can treat with Lady Olenna, we could seek some advantage,” she continued, overconfident in his opinion. “I will seek advice with Littlefinger too.”

When she left the library, Jon closed his eyes bemoaning it.

* * *

**Sunspear.**

The crickets sang adorning the calm of the garden where Tyrion could perfectly fall asleep, drunk with sweet dornish wine. This plan was frustrated by Varys and his incessant spiel.

"She's quite temperamental but nothing like Viserys was," he said, mulling over the subject with his goblet in hand. "We just have to turn her in the right direction every time she strays."

"Are you friends now?"

"Are you jealous, my Lord?"

Tyrion scoffed.

"Of the man who holds a death sentence on his head already?"

Daenerys had been clear about his destiny the day he returned to weave out of her web.

"She is aware of who I am as she is of the environment here in Westeros. I rather this apparently rational behavior than naivety. The gods know naivety does not make good kings."

"What if she...burns them?"

He made a motion indicating he was pondering it.

"She knows it will be only perjurious to her image. The daughter of the Mad King coming to do exactly what your sister says she will do. No, she is a smart woman. She knows she shouldn't give Cersei room to lay down the perfect scenario where she is the best-worst option."

Tyrion raised his goblet to the night sky.

"That's exactly what Cersei would expect," he agreed.

Silence reigned before Varys had spoken again.

"We haven't talked about the recent events, my dear friend. Blood is the fiercest of loyalties, I am afraid."

He was speaking of the whole thing with Tommen and the Sept. Tyrion's heart ached with the sole mention and he wanted more than ever to see Cersei writhing in pain. Yet he knew he was referring to another more sensitive matter: his brother Jaime, who kept being the loyalist fool by her side.

"I think that neither of them would doubt to kill me if they see me again. Well, Cersei that's a safe bet but Jaime--"

"Have you talked to _her_ already about him?"

"He is the one who killed her father."

"Her _mad_ father," Varys emphasized. 

"You say blood is the fiercest of loyalties," Tyrion reminded him.

"Her notion of family is just a blurry thought. She can differentiate between her dreams and the reality," he made a pause, sipping. "At least, I do believe she can."

"Perhaps she would send him to the Night's Watch."

"Speaking of--" Varys put his goblet aside on the bench they were sharing. "Jon Snow. King Jon Snow."

"The bastard of Ned Stark. Who would've anticipated that?"

"He has certainly ruined my plans for the North. Now the only option is an alliance, or soon we'll meet secession wars and all our efforts to bring some form of peace and order will be lost."

"Do you believe she would marry a...bastard? Son of one of the men that was fundamental to end her lineage? Besides she--" Tyrion stopped there. It was not that she cared for the status of people, that he knew. It was the fact that she was in a difficult situation that Varys didn't know and sure if he did, he will be running to find a better candidate to support.

"Besides she what?"

"She is stubborn and Jon Snow is a man of honor," he excused rapidly. He was just baffling something that crossed his mind in earlier thought. "He would not ally with the daughter of the man that killed his grandfather and uncle, and the sister of the man that raped his aunt."

"Oh my Lord. Have you been gone so long? Feelings don't matter in times of war. They are young. They are both rulers. There's no further discussion," Varys followed him. Then he looked down at Tyrion suspiciously. "You were the one that counseled her to let that Tyroshi sellsword behind. Please tell me it was because of the sake of a marriage alliance and not because you've caught feelings for the queen."

"Of course, it was for that!" Tyrion protested. Obviously, any man with the complete use of his sanity would fall for her but he was not by any means in love with this young, idealistic queen. He just cherished her cause and wanted the best for her. Before he had to continue the petty conversation, Daenerys appeared through the side gate. "Look. Here she comes--" 

Both men stood and bowed. Daenerys paid no mind to the gesture and only indicated, "Let's go to the audience chamber."

Once there she closed the door.

"Lord Tarly was halfway to King's Landing when I stopped him. His men tried to attack Drogon but luckily I was able to dodge it and it ended with just a few broken bones. There was no fire at any time." 

Tyrion and Varys looked at each other and then again to Daenerys. 

"Alright. And what happened?" Tyrion encouraged her to tell more.

"He argued that he had no intention of accepting Cersei's offer. That he was going to King's Landing to confront her on behalf of House Tyrell."

"And did you believe him?"

"No, of course, I did not."

"And they disrespected you?" Varys knew where to direct the conversation. Did they do the very thing that sometimes makes you lose your temper? was what he wanted to know.

"Does it matter?" Daenerys replied sharply, "Many have insulted me on my face before." And most of them are all dead, Tyrion would add. "Samwell Tarly, his oldest son, told me that his father's greatest pride was his other son, Dickon. I offered him a place on my Queen's guard if they swore allegiance to my cause."

"And what did he say?"

Daenerys huffed. 

"That in time he hopes that it will offer him more than a place in the Queen's guard. Now I am what your sister says I am, _apparently_."

A foreign whore that comes to burn your castles, Tyrion thought. It was interesting how Cersei could still have the guts to manipulate the truth. 

"I'm sorry," he said, truly feeling it for her. 

"And will you consider the young Tarly? He should not even be an option, your grace," Lord Varys rightly pointed out. 

"Prince Trystane can't be King Consort if he's the heir of Dorne, so--"

"We have to consider King Jon Snow, your grace."

Daenerys face contorted. This whole matter with that beyond belief tale about walking corpses still haunted her. And not because she particularly was a believer of them but because it conditioned her to attend the northern affairs sooner than later.

"I am almost sure that situation won't be solved with a marriage alliance," she said.

"We can just guess until we meet him," Varys insisted.

Daenerys looked at Tyrion.

"Tyrion knows him."

"Hardly." What Tyrion remembered was another idealistic boy on his path to disillusion.

"You know the Starks. He won't marry me."

"Perhaps if he sees you--"

"If he merely changes his mind because of my looks then he's a terrible party to consider." 

"We just need him as your consort, your grace," Varys cut in. "It would be seen as a gesture of peace to have a Stark son and a Targaryen daughter finally making peace. I beg you to make of this matter your utmost consideration."

She breathed out, spiritless. Tyrion squinted at her, trying to find the sign of something odd yet all he found was a very tired young woman. 

"I'll leave my options open. Let's talk about the war against Cersei now."

* * *

**Winterfell**.

Sansa shook herself in disgust when a hand landed on her shoulder inadvertently when she was sitting at her desk, _in her chamber_. She didn't need to guess who it was.

"How do you get in here?"

Petyr walked around the desk to the other side, watching her with the same intense gaze he always had on her. A look that made Sansa feel disgusted with herself.

"Are you afraid of me after all this time? After all that we've endured?" he returned, with feigned outrage. 

"Lord Baelish. Do never get into my chambers without my permission. Is that clear?"

"You are the one requesting an audience with me, my Lady."

"An audience, exactly. Not a surprise visit," she sat back and decided not to further push the matter. It was a vicious circle with him.

"I'm all ears," he said but then he halted her when she was about to begin. "It is not necessary. Daenerys Stormborn arrived on our shores."

It didn't surprise her at all. One of the reasons why dealing with state affairs with Baelish was better than not doing it, was because he always got the way to have an advantage.

Jon still couldn't see that.

"She sent a message. She believes that the Night King and the undead are real," Sansa revealed. 

"It doesn't surprise me. She is pretty acquainted with stories and fantasies. How couldn't she? She is the one who birthed dragons from stone and fire."

"She is coming to seize our freedom."

Petyr laughed in that way that let her know that she was being a slow learner.

"To be completely free, one must secure oneself that the captors are gone. Cersei. Daenerys. Jon. The other kingdoms...They are all obstacles in your path. In the path of freedom."

"Jon is not an obstacle."

"It is if he bends the knee."

"He will not."

Again, he looked and her with those mocking eyes.

"They say she is the most beautiful woman in the Known World," he reminded her. "A man of honor may he is but still a man. An all man values beauty."

It was beyond that, Sansa thought. Even if Jon renounced his crown, she knew her people would not easily accept this foreign queen who came with three dragons. 

"The Lords would never bend the knee to a southron ruler. It would be carnage."

"There has no been any fire incident since Baelor's."

"What do you mean?"

"Whoever is whispering at the queen's ear knows that the dragons would not secure her the throne and she's been an obedient apprentice," he paced the room until he leaned on the opposite wall, staring through the window. "She's playing by the rules in other terms."

He seemed too calm. Too confident. It made Sansa wonder what was in truth his motives. Baelish was never a man that let things loose and the arrival of Daenerys and the possible dethroning of Cersei Lannister was not something he could control as he has with other situations. 

"You told me about her doings in Essos," Sansa recalled. "I don't want to see people crucified by hundreds and fire fields." 

Littlefinger turned his face on her, smiling cynically. 

"I tell you something, my dear. Sometimes a little chaos would not harm if one is the hand controlling it."

* * *

**Sunspear**. 

The Tarly lad had finished applying the ointment early in the morning. Jorah was still forbidden in most of the castle, but little by little he could move with more freedom and that is why he took the risk of looking for Khaleesi in the gardens where he knew he would find her.

It was impossible to stop his accelerated heart when he saw her sitting in a water fountain, with her feet sunk on the side of the pool. It seemed far from the image of a queen.

"Khaleesi," he greeted her.

Daenerys looked up and met his eyes. A sweet smile appeared on her face.

"My loyal bear. Come sit with me and let us enjoy the sunrise."

She moved aside and allowed him to sit down. It was still impossible for him to believe that after so long she would open her heart to him like that again. However, now more than ever, Jorah knew she had to demarcate that line that divided them. A line that she herself had made clear so many times to the pain of his heart and one that he had to respect because first of all, although she was the woman he loved, she was the queen that this land forgotten by the goodness of the gods deserved.

He was going to give his life if it was necessary for that dream to come true.

"Khaleesi, have you slept?"

The burdens that weighed down on her seemed to not let her rest and although her face was no less beautiful because of it, there were clearly lines of concern that he had not seen before.

"More than enough," she replied with a smile that never reached her eyes.

"Something worries me," he confided, restraining himself from grabbing her hand. "You worry me."

Her brow furrowed. 

"Worry not. I am more than fine and even more since you returned to me, my friend."

"It was a short departure," he jested.

"It was longer than you can imagine," she said with a longing look that took him aback. It was the same look she gave him back then at the fighting pits. "I am so sorry for what I did to you, Jorah," she apologized almost like reading his mind but he couldn't agree with her on this supposed damage she inflicted upon him.

"I should be the one asking for your forgiveness, Khaleesi."

She gave him another reassuring smile.

"I've had already forgiven you, my loyal bear." Then, she turned to see at the sky, closing her eyes when the clarity became too much for her sleepless eyes. "I'll set your mind at ease, my friend. Is my war what got me like this," she confessed. 

Jorah wanted to encourage her, tell her not to fear as her most arduous battles had been already fought. What was Cersei Lannister compared to the Dragon Queen? But of course, she could be referring to the issue with the North. That improbable but terrible threat that hung over the entire continent.

"There's no way you can lose it now." The Iron Throne, he meant. Though something about the way things were now told Jorah that the matter was losing its initial bright. "You are more powerful than ever," he reminded her.

Khaleesi chuckled. 

"Power tends to attract the worst kind of company, I'm afraid."

The first thing that came to mind was Lord Varys then Tyrion Lannister. Those two were better kept under close vigilance, he knew, as they weren't there in during her beginnings and therefore were unable to see a Daenerys beyond her power.

"Are you afraid?" he asked her and hoped she would be sincere with him. 

A cloud covered the sun just as she turned her face to him with a solemn expression.

"I am terrified."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do not plan to re-watch the show to check the timeline, so I took my liberties here. Daenerys stayed in Meereen, traveled, and stayed on Suspear long enough for Jorah to fully heal on the Citadel.
> 
> I'll be tagging the characters along the way.
> 
> Next Chapter: Let's deal with the war against Cersei. Jon goes to the Wall to meet Bran.


	3. Departure and Return

**.II**

**Departure and Return.**

**Sunspear**.

In a few days, it would be _the day_. She had dreamed about it so many times that now was clear to the mind how hollow the dream was - always a longing that unrevealed that beyond the significance of recovering the throne that belonged to her family was the blatant and immutable truth that she would never have them back. And though she was surrounded by the people she came to love with the same kind of fierceness, Daenerys always had to remind herself that she was alone in this fight. 

"Hey," she giggled when Viserion drew near his snout as if he had heard her thoughts and he had to remember her that _they_ were there too. "My love," she talked to him softly. Soon Rhaegal and Drogon approached to receive the same treatment from their mother. "There you are. I know. I know."

"Not in my wildest dreams I have seen an image like this," said a marveled voice. The dragons turned their long necks towards it and there they found a mesmerized Prince Doran watching at them, accompanied by his guard, who by contrast, looked at her children with fearful eyes. 

Daenerys got up from the floor and patted the dirt off her hands.

"Many people do well to be a little scared, Prince Doran," Daenerys warned to the fascinated dornish Prince. A healthy fascination, she knew, that could turn dangerous if in one outburst one of them attack him. "Should I assume that my advisors have sent you to find me? What possible is that grievous that only the prince himself could convince me to interrupt my time with my children?"

It was her sacred time. Ever since they got back together, Daenerys has taken it upon herself to spend time with them and make up for the lost time. Although they did not seem to hold a grudge towards their mother for what happened, she needed to recover that bond dwindled with the time they spent apart. Especially when they were on the brink of war, and many others to come.

"Actually, I came on my own initiative. I apologize with you if I took you at a bad time, Queen Daenerys."

Daenerys shook her head and waved it off. She hooked her arm to the prince's to let herself be guided by his slow gait.

"I've heard of this affair with the Northernmost kingdom," he addressed in a forthright manner. "I do recognize you must not downplay the players in the North, but I'll be failing my own principles if I do not show some concern about some whispers that are getting louder in the halls of my castle. We, like you, have a troubling story with the Starks of Winterfell."

Dany listen to the Prince closely and allowed him to elaborate on that.

"You and I, we both lost _them_. Our niece and nephew. Heirs to the Crown that now falls onto your head." They walked over long chairs by the pool. "Rhaegar forsook his duty with Elia and their children for a Stark woman. And while I acknowledge that she has been the victim of the same atrocity my dear Elia went through, my people and I cannot help but feel overwhelmed by the prospective union of House Targaryen with House Stark."

"I see," Dany said after a moment, clearing her throat. "The matter of my marriage is already causing some unrest between your people."

"Dorne has long been ruled by unrest, Queen Daenerys. We always advocate for peace, even when the wound of what happened with Elia still throbbed in our hearts. I imagine your Hand, Lord Tyrion, has told you that my brother Oberyn could never get over it, this wound leading him to his early grave."

Daenerys nodded gently. 

"Sure you'll hear fair reasons from the Northern kingdom, now more than ever. However, I'll be dishonest if I don't let my intentions with this alliance clear from the very beginning."

"It's my understanding, my Prince, Trystane cannot be King consort if he's to be your heir-"

"I am not speaking of Trystante," he cut her off, "I am speaking of myself."

She had to withdraw in surprise, blinking in disbelief.

"May you pardon me?" Daenerys barely spoke before he had continued.

"I know that I am not a suitable man for a woman like you. With me, you will not find a brave warrior who can carry our banners throughout the Seven Kingdoms, but like you, Queen Daenerys, I am haunted by ghosts: the family I started losing the moment Rhaegar made that decision. I saw before my eyes my legacy disappear and I know that the time has come to pass this burden to Trystane but still, my duty is to ensure that in memory of my niece or nephew, future heirs to that Crown have dornish blood as they have Targaryen's." 

She kept on listening to him, speechless. 

"I'm going to abdicate in favor of Trystane, and he will marry a suitable woman and father the future children of House Martell. And if you have me, I can still give you children that can carry on that legacy we both lost back in the time." 

Daenerys didn't know what to say, the proposal taking her completely unprepared. The prince noticed this and give her a tight smile with sad eyes.

"Of course, you must consider this. Evaluate the options on the board to make your next move. The Iron Throne must be secured and then, this affair with the North." He approached his hand and covered hers. "Whatever you choose, I know you'll be a good queen for the Realm." 

* * *

Theon dutifully perched behind Yara and declined the offer to sit next to her during the last meeting before the departure for King's Landing. The details for the siege of the city and the confrontation against Euron's fleet were being finalized. He listened carefully but did not dare at any time to contribute anything other than a simple assent. The most he dared do was glance sideways in the Queen's direction, to capture details that might help him form a more specific opinion of her.

When the meeting was over, he apologized to Yara and asked her permission to solicit for a word with the Queen. His sister slapped his arm in approval and withdrew.

"Your Grace, may you grant me a word?"

The Lannister dwarf and the eunuch who were her closest advisors looked at Theon strangely, probably surprised to heard him speak. He spoke towards her in a low, shy, and respectful tone.

Daenerys who was sitting at the end of the table, put her undescriptive beautiful eyes on him, which made him feel even more embarrassed and conscious of himself.

"Of course," she said in her soft voice, nodding in the direction of the chair in her right. When he was seated, Lord Tyrion and the eunuch were heading toward the exit.

"I've received a letter a couple of days ago. A letter from my--" Theon stopped dead when he almost called Sansa his sister. He cleared his throat and began again. "A couple of days ago, I received a letter from Lady Sansa Stark, the Lady of Winterfell."

"Your adoptive sister," the Queen said, taking him aback. He guessed Yara acquainted her with his relations with the Starks. "So, tell me, Theon, is the content of this latter of so much importance that I must be aware of?" 

Instead of giving a proper answer, Theon put the scroll on the table at her disposition.

"Oh, I see," she said, looking at the piece of parchment but doing nothing to take it. "There's no need for me to read it. You can summarize it for me."

This attitude of hers was striking. Not because he believed she was somehow trustful of him but because of her kind nature, a far cry from the people he's been surrounded almost all his life and especially the last couple of years. 

"She just wanted to know if it's true that I am with you and if your intentions are as clear as you let them know on your first missive," he revealed. 

Daenerys smiled politely, folding her hands above the table. 

"Is Lady Sansa a distrustful woman?"

Theon tried to put the memories in order in his mind. Sometimes it was hard to focus on something, his mind too used to disassociating almost everything he has lived through in the last few years. This was what made him understand better how to explain Sansa's nature to the Queen. 

"She...she is been through a terrible marriage that left her scars and during many years she's been subjected to other's whims." Just then he remembered Sansa has been previously married to Tyrion Lannister, so hurriedly he added, "Not with Lord Tyrion--"

"I understand," she interrupted him, her eyes settled on the parchment in front of her. "Answer what you deem the fit response of her query, Lord Theon. If with my good predisposition, I cannot meet her consideration then nothing else will help to convince her," she stood up and he followed her suit, bowing while whispering a soft word of gratitude. "I thank you for this show of respect, Lord Theon," she answered, leaving the audience chamber.

* * *

"Doran wants me as his wife. He believes he still can provide the crown with heirs. What he doesn't know is that he's not the problem."

If Tyrion was honest, he would have wanted to laugh at what Daenerys was telling him. By contrast, Varys will find the situation aggravating, he thought.

They were enjoying their last night together in Sunspear, before leaving for the siege of King's Landing. Anxiety and excitement were breathed in the environment, also the fear that came with the war. He looked over at her who sat by his side on the steps that led to the gardens, both silently saying their own prayers. It made him wonder what was going on in that head of hers and why she looked so dejected just days apart from accomplish her one true goal. But then, he was an expert in reading people. 

"This matter is unavoidable, your grace," he said in the most delicate way, "I mean if you want to break the wheel, someone has to keep it broken."

She nodded first but then objected, "Maybe is not about someone keeping it broken but about _permanently_ breaking it."

"And how do you mean to obtain that?"

Without a proper answer, Daenerys sighed and close her eyes regretfully. 

"If all of you'd let me, _at least_ , wear the crown first."

He laughed softly and she joined him little after. 

* * *

**Winterfell**.

**_Dear Lady Sansa,_ **

**_I hope this message finds you well and safe. I was happy to hear about Jon's election as King of the North._ **

**_As for your interest in knowing whether Queen Daenerys Targaryen's words are true, let me confirm that this is, indeed, the case. I cannot reveal much more about the specifics of her campaign of conquest, but it is true so far she has no intention of using her dragons to subjugate those who oppose her._ **

**_If my opinion is what counts, I think she is a woman with a gentle heart._ **

**_With sincere affection, Theon_**. 

Sansa smiled as she read him skipping the formality at the end of his letter. She reread the words to engrave them in her mind until that was all she would think as the days went by.

She found herself not knowing how they would proceed in this scenario. A part of her screamed not to trust this Targaryen Queen. Targaryens were Targaryens. Her power came from a source only she could control and time and experience have only shown her that people were unable to use it without harming innocents. And she already committed heinous acts of horror in Essos. 

Sansa shook Littlefinger's voice out of her head. No. It wasn't just Petyr's words. It was a call for survival.

She looked at her side where Jon was sitting, laughing while speaking with his peers. It was unusual to see him so nonchalant in those days, or any other really. He might be her only remaining family but the truth is, he was still almost a complete stranger to her. One thing she knew was that he was still naive to some extent, believing that the world would stop to look at this threat that came from the North and whose arrival was imminent but never exact. Meanwhile, the rest seemed unimportant to him, like the duties that came with the crown upon his head, figurative speech.

For example, at that very moment, he was unable to see that every now and then, maidens were walking around trying to catch his attention. It made her roll her eyes for both parts, the ignored women and the unsuspecting King whose main concern was stealing scraps of food to throw at his wolf under the table.

Sansa took a deep breath and for a moment let the wine down her throat take her to a warm place where no worries chased her.

That calm lasted as long as a blink, for the Maester entered the Great Hall hurriedly with an unlikely message to them.

* * *

**King's Landing outskirts**. 

The snow fell on a fire that seemed not to want to go out. Children's laughter and the shadowy figure of the tough-looking man. A dream that reminded her that it was only a dream because she had already seen everything there. She wanted to stay there longer but something always interrupted her just when the man's beloved's face was going to be revealed to her. 

Daenerys woke up with a start, breathing in and out in rapidly. That idyllic dream seemed not to leave her alone, intensifying as she got closer to her goal.

The flap of her tent opened as Missandei's angelic face crossed through it.

"I heard you startle. Are you well, your grace?" she asked.

Daenerys was still trying to regain the normal rhythm of her breathing when she reached out a hand in the direction of her friend and invited her to join in her cot. Missandei gladly complied and both women cuddle beneath the furs.

"You know you can call me Daenerys, right?"

Missandei looked at her with a smile and nodded. Dany proceeded to tell her about the dream without diving in too much in the significance of it.

"Do you believe this dream is telling you something?"

"I think it's reminding me of something."

"And that would be?"

Daenerys sighed. 

"That I lost my family, Missandei. And that nothing I can do to fight against that reality."

Being her confident and friend, the Naathi translater knew exactly what Dany meant. 

"You still can find someone as I found Torgo Nudho. I know we will never have children on our own but I am still embracing a future together."

Dany squeezed her hand and smiled happily at her. And I'm going to do the impossible to make sure it is that way, she promised herself. 

"You and Torgo Nudho...that's true love."

"What made you think you cannot find it?"

"Because I am first a Queen. Queens finds not love but alliances and only if life it's enough good with them, maybe some company. I expect very much just the first. I've learned to find enough company in myself and that's it. Besides, I already knew love...and I lost it."

"Your husband, the Khal?"

Dany doubted but nodded. 

"And the child I lost with him."

"I'm so sorry, Daenerys. I still believe you can find it again."

Dany blinked away the tears. No, she would not. 

"Speaking of Torgo Nudho," she moved on the subject. "I expected him to arrive any day now. Are you anxious? I'm sorry I didn't allow you to go with them to Dragonstone but I only can trust this task to him."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"Why would you not take them to battle? Wasn't this why the Unsullied and the Dothraki followed you? To take the throne of your family in your name?"

Daenerys turned to rest on her back. 

"There are many reasons," she admitted, "The first one being my advisors. I'm not always on the same line but they were right in pointing out how untrustful Westerosi are with foreigners. And before their eyes, I am still foreign. Foreign armies taking the Throne would be seen as an invasion." She glanced at her, "And secondly, I want to keep you safe. All of you."

* * *

**Red Keep**.

"How many?" Cersei asked from her place in front of the balcony, where she had made her refuge from reality.

Jaime wanted to laugh and tell her that the number of men the Dragon Queen had on her side was not important. Dorne and The Reach's support was enough to tip the balance on their enemy's side, and her three dragons enough to condemn the fate of the war. He knew a lot about wars and in other circumstances, he would have fought with fists and teeth for a victory, however improbable it was. But against three bloody dragons, there was no much else anyone can do.

"More than enough. Dorne and the Reach from the South and the West. Her armies of Dothraki and Unsullied protect the Northern front and her dragons are out there, waiting for her command." He slowly approached her. "Cersei, it's over."

She whirled around just to shoot him a livid gaze with which he was more than familiar with.

"Do you think our father would have given up that easily?"

"Our father underestimated Daenerys Targaryen when she was still a child and her dragons no bigger than a horse." He also looked at the city through the balcony view. 

A sense of danger overcame him just remembering the Mad King screaming the order to burn them all, not knowing if he was associating him with his daughter or with Cersei herself.

"There must be another option! Something we are not considering--" She made a pause, looking in the direction of Qyburn. "When will you have the ballistas done?"

"Cersei--" 

"What?" she snapped, "Now are you opposing our only alternative?"

"Bringing down a dragon from the sky with a project will require one in a million chance. Once you start building those things on the walls, Daenerys will charge towards Red Keep with all her might."

She scoffed at him.

"And if she does that, she will sentencing her own destiny as Queen of the ashes."

Jaime walked backwards, beholding the view of her before turning to see at Qyburn. 

"What are you saying?" he asked her but she never gave him a response.

* * *

"Your sister won't surrender," Daenerys told Tyrion for what it seemed the hundredth time that day. They were inside the war council tent. The joined armies already set encampment on the outskirts of the King's Landing. Yara kept the fleet divided north and south of Blackwater Bay, while her uncle stood guard in the east of the city with his, blocking the way to the tunnels that passed under Red Keep.

"And if you let the dragons loose over the city, you run the risk to fulfill your father last wish to see the city turned into the kingdom of ashes," Tyrion answered, receiving a sharp glance from Daenerys that warned him not to forget decorum.

"Tell me, my Lord," Lady Olenna interrupted, "Did you hold the same concern for collateral damage when you participate in the battle against Stannis Baratheon? When you launched the wildfire tanks in the direction of his fleet?" The Queen of Thorns looked up to Daenerys. "No matter what you do, Cersei is not going to leave Red Keep alive. If she has to implode the city and take it with her, she will. It is your decision, my dear, if you are going to be the one to have the last word in this war." 

"Her grace is not my sister, let's not forget that," Tyrion insisted, "If we show them our Queen comes to do no much different from the last people that occupied that chair then she never will be loved--"

"Love?" Olenna mocked, "Why is that what matters now? You think it's love that keeps us where we are, my Lord. Do you truly are that naive? _Fear_ is what keeps people from eating us alive." 

Daenerys stilled her eyes on the air, listening to her council's advice but ultimately formulating the answer in her mind on her own. Only once did she peeked in the direction of Lord Varys, who remained strangely quiet and silent.

"Lord Varys," she spoke to him, "You always say that you are at the service of the Realm. What is your opinion? Extending the war, what would it mean to prolong the people within suffering or risk using our resources before Cersei can strengthen her position and limit our options?"

Cornered, the spider had no choice but to step forward and speak.

"I agree with Lord Tyrion when he says that you have not come to repeat the mistakes of the past. However, it is true that Cersei is the type of person who can see a weakness in your grace's good intentions. If my honest opinion is what you are looking for, use your resources not to outdo Cersei, but to take away the advantage that keeps her on the throne. The fear of the people."

* * *

**Winterfell**.

_Bran was alive_. Jon's heart was beating out of his body, everything around him was just a blurred image that at times got lost making way for darkness. Bran was alive.

"You don't know if it's him," Sansa said, not maliciously he wanted to believe but in her always skeptical manner. "Why not wait for him to be brought to be sure?"

"Because I cannot wait, I cannot!" Jon skewed, then he rued his tone. "I trust the word of the men of Night's Watch. This boy that comes from the lands Beyond the Wall fits perfectly the last description we had of Bran. It must be him! He has to!"

"Please don't get me wrong, I would be more than happy if this new is true--"

"Then, what's the problem? Why every time I make a decision you have to oppose it?"

"Because I watch for your good and for the good of the North. Gods, Jon. You are the King! You can't just leave the castle, much less now when a possible invasion looms over us."

Sansa leaned against the gallery rail that led to the main courtyard, Jon a few steps from her. He understood her reasons but wanted her to trust his good judgment from time to time.

"The North is not going to be unprotected," he said, "While I am not here, the North is in your care."

She seemed to have a prepared objection but Jon's statement caught her by surprise, leaving Sansa half-spoken.

"I am not a soldier. I know nothing about battles."

"You know enough," he replied, "It won't be too long. I'm going to bring our brother back home and together we will continue planning Winterfell's defense against the dead."

Saying this, he turned in the direction of the stables where Davos was already waiting for him. He knew it was probably not the best decision he could have made but it was the only one he had at the moment. If by the time he returned he finally found that Sansa was less of a sister and more of an opponent, then he would start acting accordingly to that reality.

* * *

**King's Landing Outskirts.**

"Please, reconsider this," Tyrion shouted behind her. She was heading to Drogon uncaring of her Hand's words of warning. "We can still wait, there's plenty of time--"

"There is not!" she finally said, turning around. Daenerys breathed in the fresh, salty sea air and then let it go. "We have to deal with the North. The only way I can do that is securing the throne and wearing the crown I am claiming mine. Otherwise, I'm just another petty claimant going around this continent without any land nor people to call mine. I cannot let Cersei sit on the throne any longer. And If you have faith in me as you claimed long ago, show me that now by wishing me good luck."

Her strident words were enough for Tyrion to accept that he had nothing more to discuss. However, Daenerys deduced from his downcast eyes that there was a question he did not dare raise.

"Your brother," she guessed, "I know you want me to spare your brother's life."

"It's not my place to ask for such thing."

"But you want me to do that."

Daenerys turned around to climb on Dragon's neck. 

"Unless he attempts on my life, which is more than possible, Jaime Lannister will also be judged along with your sister. Any crime he has committed against House Targaryen no longer matters because House Targaryen no longer exists."

"Daenerys," he called her when she had already finished the exchange. "Please, be careful. With yourself, I mean. If something happens to you, we are all lost."

She furrowed her brow in disbelief and let it go. Daenerys ordered Drogon to fly to King's Landing walls, hovering over troops located throughout the northern outskirts of the city.

* * *

**Castle Black**.

Jon had an uncontrollable shaking the moment they led him to the chambers where Bran had been placed, well, who called himself Bran. Edd had mentioned beforehand that the person he would meet was not quite right and that he had certain strange attitudes. However, he'd only found a young man, even more boy than man, sitting by the fire, listening to his crackle without flinching at any time.

"Bran?" was the first word that slipped from his lips, joined little after by a subtle sound of weeping. "Bran is you?"

He looked over at Jon with an unreadable expression and nodded.

"I am, in some sense," he confirmed.

Jon stumbled across the room and knelt in front of his brother, cupping his still boyish face to verify that it was true, that he still had a brother. How hard was the feeling of only finding emptiness in his dark eyes.

"Bran, what happened to you? Were you all this time in the North?"

"Not at the beginning, but at the end. Surely your friend Samwell should've told you that."

Jon frowned.

"Why? Why were you there? You...you know about?"

"The White Walkers?"

"You know."

"I do. I saw the Night King. His undead soldiers killed Summer and Hoddor."

_Hoddor_ , Jon thought with sadness

"Gods, Bran. There so much we have to talk about--"

"There will be time for that," he cut him off with a blunt voice. "There's something more important you need to know."

Jon scoffed. What could've be more important than knowing of his whereabouts all these years? And worst, he still needed to tell him about their siblings. About Robb's and Rickon's deaths if he didn't know, about Sansa...about Arya that was still lost or probably dead. 

"I was there because I needed to be there. All of us were in the exact place where we should be. Like you here in The Wall for example."

"Please tell me these people weren't filling you with stories," he jested probably knowing it happened.

"It wasn't necessary," Bran said, "I can see it. It's all in my memory now. I see you standing here as one of the best, someone who was too good to a place like this but yet accepting and embracing his destiny. I see you traveling the lands Beyond the Wall, meeting the Wildlings, falling in love with Ygritte, losing her here during a battle. I see you at the top of the Wall speaking with Stannis Baratheon, on his tower rejecting his proposal to become Lord of Winterfell in exchange for your loyalty. Your life, from the beginning to its early end and to this very moment in the present...I can see it clearly now."

Jon pulled his hand away from his little brother's shoulder, realizing that it wasn't exactly Bran who was saying those words. A shiver running down his spine.

"Bran--what are you talking about?" he asked, standing and in shock, walking backwards. 

"I am not just Brandon Stark. I am the Three-Eyed Raven, Jon. I guard the memory of the world. What it was, what it is and what it might be, though not so clearly because the future is always uncertain."

"Are you...magical?"

"You can put it in those words."

Jon scoffed again in disbelief. 

"What does it mean? So you can...see the past?"

"I do. It is how I learned from this secret that I am about to reveal to you. Lord Eddard Stark took to the grave a truth that is only yours. You know what I mean?"

All the air escaped from his lungs.

"My mother's name," Jon fell back to his knees, and looked expectantly at Bran. Even if everything he was saying was a lie, he needed to hear it. "Bran you know her name?"

"Not just hers --his and yours too. Your mother and father, Lyanna Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen, and your true name, Aemon Targaryen."

* * *

**King's Landing.**

Drogon landed on the structure of what would be a ballista, and as soon as he opened his muzzle to the Lannister soldiers who dared to direct arrows and heavier projectiles in their direction, the men abandoned all initiative and thrown themselves off the walls.

Daenerys took a moment to observe the panoramic view of the city. The cries for help and fear echoed in her ears. 

For a moment everything became confusing and she felt nauseous from the hammering in her mind that asked her to end it all at once.

No, a wiser voice said in her mind. If something happens to you, we are all lost. She understood it better now.

"Citizens of King's Landing!" Daenerys screamed at the top of her lungs, obviously addressing the limited group of people who could hear her from where she was. "My name is Daenerys Targaryen and I have come to help you end the reign of Cersei and House Lannister. I know what you have been told about me. That I am a foreign whore who has come to burn your city and stole what's yours. But that is not true. I am not coming to bring you more than the choice to be free and abandon fear. Cersei is just a small woman who takes shelter in the walls of Red Keep. It is not with me that she should be accountable but with you. I come to propose to you to abandon fear and embrace your freedom. My dragons do not come to burn you and my armies do not come to conquer you. Behind these walls are your Westerosi men and women from Dorne and The Reach, and beyond in Blackwater Bay, those Ironborn that are not operating in favor of Cersei's cruelty."

Then with a swift movement, Drogon released the bag he carried in his claw.

_Weapons_.

"Open the gates of your city and I swear to you for my life and that of my children that today you will regain your freedom. The same goes to those Lannister soldiers who want to join our side! Your freedom is not mine to give you, you must choose to be free!"

Daenerys took one last look at Red Keep before taking flight to repeat the same action in the next gatehouse. 

By the nightfall, the city gates began to open, not without some disturbance in between. The inhabitants of King's Landing were escaping towards the camp set up by her troops, meeting other Westerosis men and women who provided them with plenty of food and clean water.

The fewer people inside the city, the less risk her father's wildfire stores represented, so Daenerys could fly over the city with the three dragons to confront Cersei, who was still quartered in Red Keep.

However, nothing in war remained good.

As the moon rose in the night sky, an explosion of green erupted in Red Keep, forcing Daenerys, instinctively and against the judgment of her advisors, to fly over the city to rescue whoever she could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went with the name Aemon because I don't think in the books Jon will be called Aegon and probably in the show D&D just merged Jon and Faegon's storylines.
> 
> Next Chapter: Daenerys and Jon's meeting.


	4. Secret and Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song recommendation: Bad Kingdom - May, Robot Koch.

**III.**

**Secrets and Truth**. 

**DAENERYS**

**Kings Landing**.

The streets of King's Landing were far from being a marvel, and this was truly the first time that Daenerys had walked them, having only flown over it. The truth was, Viserys had embellished Westeros' image, ruining any hint of objectivity for her. The clash with this reality was as harsh as the first time she experienced this feeling of disappointment. Life seemed to want to constantly disenchant her.

I am no longer a girl, she reminded herself. I have lived longer than my years could tell.

"Your grace, it is time to go home," Tyrion told her in a soft and compassionate voice, reminding Daenerys why she cared for him despite his flaws. In a way, it reminded her of herself.

What he was referring to, being there at the foot of the grand stairs that would lead them to Red Keep, was that she was finally there. At home. So many years in exile but she was finally there.

I just want to go home, Daenerys told to her brother once, not thinking exactly what place that was. Tyrion was as naive as she was then. 

Daenerys sought reassurance in Torgo Nudho, who had arrived alongside a part of the Unsullied army once the explosion had already taken place, just in time to prevent her from recklessly entering the city without first rule out it wasn't a trap. Her commander nodded, giving her that sense of security she so badly needed right now.

"The bodies were removed. The usurper queen and her brother were imprisoned and the girl we found unconscious was taken to a healer."

She said nothing about that. The explosion had taken her so by surprise that she could only be relieved that there had been no further casualties.

Daenerys took the first step, leaving behind those who had brought her to this point, walking the path on her own. Loneliness, she thought. No, Red Keep was not going to fill that void, she knew it. It was rather a childish curiosity that led her to look intently at the long corridors she walked the further she entered the castle. She asked herself if there was something in there that had survived from the days of her father's reign. All she found was a humid and aged environment as if the person who had inhabited the place had not taken any care for its maintenance.

Along the way, she found several banners of House Lannister that she ignored, as much as the feeling of anger and revulsion boiled in her bowels. It was actually a tapestry she could not tolerate -- a tapestry illustrating Robert's victory over Rhaegar in the Trident. Her brother's lifeless eyes watching her, sending a draft of cold air down her back. Daenerys uttered in a stern voice for it to be removed and burned. 

She reached the gates that led to the Throne Room and stood there for a moment, face to face with the carved wood. A few minutes passed before Tyrion approached, clearing his throat to catch her attention.

"You normally open doors to enter a place," he said, "If your majesty so desires, I can open them," he was being extremely careful as everyone around her, more and more everyday she noticed. 

"I have something to confess to you," she spoke, not taking her eyes off the carved wood texture, "Sometimes I imagine this whole place burning."

Not waiting for his reaction, Daenerys pushed the doors open and entered in the place where it lived her worst enemy: the Iron Throne. 

* * *

**JON**

**Castle Black**.

All he has ever known in his life was the ice, the cold, the North, which it felt like knowing just one side of the world as a whole. In the same way, not knowing his mother's identity was also not knowing half of himself. And of that other half that he did know, he had clung to it to forge his whole being. 

"Father was the most honorable man," he told Bran, holding his little brother, or whatever he had become, by the shoulders. "You don't know what you are speaking of!" 

"He was honorable, yes," Bran said, meeting Jon's distress with indifference, "He was also a brother who loved his sister deeply and a man who knew how to differentiate between right and wrong. You were innocent, Jon. And father saw what had happened with the other children of Rhaegar, with your half-siblings." 

Jon rejected it. He couldn't accept the truth. No. He was Ned Stark's bastard. Son of a whore without a name that not even his father dared to remember. 

You are a Stark. You might not have my name, but you have my blood, he remembered his father's last words to him.

Lyanna Stark. He was the son of his sister. He was not his bastard but his nephew. 

"She made him promise that he will hide you. That he will never tell Robert of your existence."

Jon let out a stifled moan, tears streaming down his face and landing on the ground. He trembled and for the first time, he felt the cold piercing his skin like a thousand daggers.

* * *

**VARYS**

He entered his former chambers and observed that almost everything had remained in place, except obviously for those things that could have served Qyburn. He was going to return the favor by going to his apartments to rummage through the information that he was sure he would find in quantity, and hopefully in quality.

An intelligent man, too much for the limitations of the Citadel, Varys thought.

Martha walked behind him, her quivering form revealing that she had something to say already.

"And?" Varys encouraged her to speak. Instead of doing so, Martha outstretched her chubby palm where was a piece of parchment that he hastily picked up to read. Vary frowned, concerned. "Who gave you this?"

* * *

**TYRION**

"Look at how things are, right? Now that our positions have turned," Jaime scoffed from his place on the dungeon's bench where Daenerys's men, from _his_ queen, had thrown him. Alive.

Tyrion felt a heavyweight on his shoulders, especially since this was the first time they had seen each other since their last meeting. Not the warm, fraternal encounter he had hoped for. 

"It could be worse," he replied, "You could be dragon food."

Jaime shook his head and snorted.

"The Dragon Queen, eh? Father said she wouldn't make it. That it was impossible. She is young, she is alone, probably her own dragons will eat her alive. Targaryens are gone, that's what he said but then, he also said you were doomed." Jaime shrugged. "May I'm not the stupidest Lannister after all."

Tyrion remained silent. All the excuses he had made in his mind to justify himself had vanished, giving way to the satisfaction of accepting that he didn't care to make sense of his actions. He killed his father because he wanted to. And he would never regret it.

"Did you know that Cersei planned to blow up the city?" he changed the subject. "Was it you who stopped her?"

Jaime kept his eyes on his for a moment and then looked away, choosing silence.

"Because of her, Tommen is dead," Tyrion blurted out. 

"Because of you, Myrcella and Joffrey are dead!" Jaime snapped. 

He leaned against the bars that kept Jaime prisoner and spoke in a clear and blunt voice, "All my life I will carry the regret that I allowed Myrcella to fall into that snake nest. But you know that I was not the one who killed Joffrey. I'm not going to let you blame me for that." He stepped back, watching him. "Look at you. Look at what Cersei made of you. She is mad, she is insane...this thing between the two of you must end before she takes you to her doom with her!"

Jaime left out a soft, carefree and arrogant laughter. 

"She's young. Her father was like that once too. I gave her a couple of years before it starts showing."  
  


"What are you talking about?"

"Do you really think she will be different, Tyrion? You from all the people?" Jaime leaned against the wall, his arms hanging, one of them without his golden hand. "We are following different women but they are just the same queen."

* * *

**VARYS**

"So the girl injured is Arya Stark?"

After attending to Yara Greyjoy, who had easily secured Blackwater Bay, the queen had ended her day's duties. Despite this, Varys entered the office she had taken for her hearings due to the impossibility of keeping them in the Throne Room and commented with her on the new information that he had acquired.

"Unfortunately I am the only one who can give you that certainty, your grace. Lord Tyrion barely remembers her," Varys confirmed, "However, that is not the urgent matter that I have to discuss with you."

"It seems to me that having this girl under my care is a matter of urgency. If something happens to her, her family in the North could believe I intentionally hurt her. How is that she get in here in the first place?"

"I cannot give you an answer before we talk to her and inquire about her whereabouts in all these years. It's not crazy to think that she had come all the way just to murder Cersei. It possible that the girl had held a promise of vengeance all this time."

"I assume that her family is unaware that she is alive?"

Varys nodded.

"I would have heard otherwise."

The queen sighed with an expression impossible to read.

"Very well, Lord Varys. Arya Stark shall be treat as my guest of honor and once she wakes up, I will be the one to speak with her first. Make sure to send word to her family about her state and that we are making all the possibly to attend her wounds. Do not skimp on details of the circumstances in which we have found her." 

"As you grace demand it," he bowed, before passing to the subject he came here to speak about, "There's a matter we should consider, your grace. I have information about a man that lives in Flea Bottom. He is the only survivor of King Robert's bastards. You know I told you Cersei ordered the total annihilation of these children in the early reign of King Joffrey."

"Usurper," The queen corrected, "From now on, each person that reigned illegitimately after my father's assassination must be named for what they were. Usurpers."

Varys took a deep breath and accepted the correction. It was allowed for a monarch small doses of arrogance. 

"What do you mean with this?" she asked then. "And what would it mean to acknowledge the existence of this bastard son? Did the usurper know about him?"

"Not him, but his Hand, Jon Arryn and later Lord Eddard Stark. In fact, it's the reason that originated the conflict that ended with Lord Stark beheaded." 

"Why did he live and not the other bastards?"

"I would like to seek more information about it, with your permission, of course."

Queen Daenerys looked at him with sharp eyes. It was the same look with which she had made clear his destiny if he even thought about betraying her. Varys did not falter, being convinced she was still the right choice for the Realm. A little distrust made no harm, he knew. 

"Alright," she said, standing and walking over. "Summoned him. I want to meet him. If what is supposed about him is true, then this man is family."

* * *

**ARYA**

Pain. She was so attached to the feeling it didn't surprised that she welcomed it so fast. It came in waves at first but she couldn't figure out where it hurt the most if her head or the left side of her upper body. 

Arya opened up her eyes laboriously, blinking several times before finally being able to accept the light that came through them. The first thing she saw clearly was the figure of a woman dressed in gray clothes that took her back to the past. A septa.

"Where am I?" she heard herself try to modulate. She repeated the question. 

"Red Keep," stated the older woman. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that her hands were busy with something, she didn't know what.

"There's still a Red Keep?" she found herself jesting. 

The last thing she remembered was being so close to reaching Cersei when a green light once again threw her away from the final name of her list. 

"The explosion only took the Throne Room," the Septa answered. 

An explosion, then. 

"And Cersei? Is she dead?" she asked, trying to sit upright only meeting a sharp, burning pain. 

"No. Be still. You have burning wounds." 

Why, she wanted to answer but soon the woman pushed a spoon of milk of the poppy in her mouth and she was soon asleep again. Why does Cersei have to escape death?

* * *

**TYRION**.

The explosion had opened a large part of the ceiling, revealing the sky that gleamed with thousands of stars.

"So," he said, looking at his companion in brooding, "What is your majesty's verdict?"

Daenerys took a deep breath. She sat on the Iron Throne, while he stood beside her on a simple bench, gazing spellbound. After all, he had fulfilled his promise to sit her on this throne. 

"It is much less spacious than the Great Pyramid of Meereen," she reckoned. 

"Yeah. Castles tend to be narrow structures."

"Tell me, is it more changed now than it was with Robert?"

Tyrion suppressed a laugh, behind Daenerys the cracked stained glass with a lion painted. 

"Cersei loves her details."

"Speaking of Cersei. She spat and bit one of my Unsullied guards. How do you think I should answer that?"

"You shouldn't answer that. An answer is what she's looking for."

"Tell me again how did this happen?"

"At the moment people armed themselves and started opening the gates, she decided if they weren't to be her subjects she will burn them all." 

"It sounds familiar as a concept," the queen recognized. 

"Then Jaime...I believe that he stopped her somehow." 

"And Arya Stark? How did this girl ended up here?"

"That's what I would like to know too."

"So, if your brother saved the city, _again_ , having him down there in the dungeons seems unfair."

She squinted at him when she said it which let him know she was testing the ground with him. Good thing she was being instinctive and cautious, Tyrion celebrated in his mind.

"You spared his life. It will suffice."

"But I'll never have his loyalty."

"There's a certain amount of people who's loyalty you will never have."

"And what do I do with them?"

"You negotiate."

"Should I negotiate Arya's life for the Northern alliance?"

"Not the best way to ask for her brother's hand," he jested.

"I'm not asking Jon Snow anything. If it comes to _that_ , he should be the one asking."

Tyrion traced her expression for a hint of amusement but she was being serious about it. Bloody youth, he cursed.

"We've come to far to fall for our arrogance, my queen," he remembered her, "You should stop spending time with Olenna Tyrell. That woman is odious and vain by nature."

Daenerys leaned back with both of her arms resting on each armchair, looking more regal than ever. 

"Finally home, right?" 

He knew that great disappointment and melancholy accompanied her. He had figured out a long time ago that what Daenerys really wanted was a family. The gods had been merciless in that sense, leaving her alone but with a brother that abused her and then taking away her chance to form one on her own.

"There's still a long way home," she said, not coming as a surprise. 

"At least now you're going to wear that crown," he pointed out.

"No, not until the North has sworn allegiance."

He scoffed. 

"That will be a _long_ way."

"You know what I think?" she sat upright. "I've been on the road for so long, I'm afraid I'll never be able to stop walking." Tyrion intended to answer but she never gave him the chance, instead changing the subject. "I know you straightforward don't believe in it. But this Samwell Tarly...he spoke of the dead and the Night King so sure of himself."

Tyrion shook his head in annoyance. As a child raised without formal education and whose main source of information was her insane brother, it didn't come as a surprise Daenerys ended up believing the first tale grumpkins and snarks she heard. 

"I don't think that a sworn brother of Night's Watch recounting of a folk tale will be enough to convince the other Kingdoms to march North."

"I am the Queen. They shall do as I say."

"And are you so sure?"

Doubt crossed her gaze. 

"I'd be more sure if I see them with my own eyes--" The doors of the destroyed hall opened, revealing Varys. At this time of night it could only mean something serious. "Lord Varys, what's the matter now?"

* * *

**ARYA**

"I never thought I'll meet a Targaryen Queen," she said sincerely when Daenerys Targaryen herself appeared through the doors of the bedchamber where she was being tended. Arya didn't know how many days have passed but once the pain was bearable enough she decided it was time to stand on her feet and go back to the road. Fuck Cersei, fuck this entire continent. She had scared off the septa to start dressing.

"Arya Stark," she spoke her name and all her senses and instincts sharpened. 

"How do you know my name?"

"Lord Tyrion Lannister, my Hand and Lord Varys, my Master of Whisper, both recognize you. As Jaime Lannister did."

"Fuck", she cursed beneath her breath. "So you are with them? With the Lannisters."

Arya took off the linen shift that they put her in, uncaring of being in the presence of the queen herself. A dragon queen like the ones she used to admire. She, the queen, neither seemed bothered and she remained with a firm stance, looking at her while Arya glanced at the mirror the scorched skin of her neck and left upper body. 

"I am not with or against them anymore because Cersei and Jaime are on a dungeon and I have what wanted back."

"The Iron Throne," she easily guessed. 

"And you, my lady," Arya let out a scoff at hearing someone calling her that, "What do you pretended by coming all this way down here?"

She turned around, looking for her breaches and shirt. 

"I wanted what you wanted: justice. Cersei does not deserve to live."

While in Essos, she had heard of Daenerys Targaryen on the streets of Braavos, in the conversations of sailors recounting her exploits in Slaver's Bay. A just woman apparently, but ruthless.

"That'll be decided sooner than later," she answered. 

"What do you mean?"

"We are judging her on a trial."

Arya let out a cynical laughter. 

"She'll get away with it."

"She won't."

"You don't know her. You don't know the Lannisters."

Hastily she began to dress. It was obvious that she would not find her weapons there so she would have to take some and trace the Needle on her own.

"Did you know, Arya, your sister and brothers are alive?"

Arya stopped with a start, looking up to meet the queen's eyes. It was only there that she paid attention to her presence.

"What?"

"Lady Sansa and Jon Snow take back Winterfell some time ago, ending the unlawful rule of the Boltons. Then your brother Jon was named King. And some days ago, a message from the Night's Watch arrived informing Cersei's Hand that a boy that called himself Brandon Stark arrived at The Wall."

Her whole world stopped in that instant and whatever she believed she had to do for reasons of justice was forgotten. She finished putting on her boots and walked toward the door.

"I have to go," she mumbled. 

"You are hurt," the dragon queen protested. Because of her tone, the guards in the way stopped her.

"I don't care!" Arya objected, turning around to face her again. "Don't you believe you are goint to stop me, right? Is this because I am a hostage? Are you going to use me to fight over Jon's crown?"

"Tell me, Arya," Daenerys replied calmly, "Don't you hate people assuming the worst of you beforehand? Before knowing you? You are free to leave whenever you want to. But be reasonable, you are injured, weak, if something happens to you midway--"

"I can take care of myself. I've survived worst."

She seemed unconvinced but finally gave the orders to her guards to free the entrance. One of them returned her Needle. 

"Wish you good fortune, then," Daenerys Targaryen passed her by, without much care. 

A part of her wanted to try to get to Cersei again but it would be a waste of time and also an abuse of her good luck. She crossed the hallways that she remembered from that interrupted childhood and continued until she reached the common corridor that led to the entrance. There were people walking freely in and out, just like normal times before the Lannisters had turned Red Keep into their cage. Just when she was about to crossed the final archway, she heard a voice she never thought would hear again.

"Arya?"

She stopped dead on her tracks, turning around and meeting an old friend.

"Gendry?"

* * *

**JON**

**The Wall**.

He couldn't fall asleep or must the courage to go back to Winterfell. Finally, Sansa's desire to see him worried about something other than the dead had been fulfilled since Jon had locked himself in his mind and no one could get him out of there, not even the Night King himself.

If he closed his eyes, all he saw were pools of blood in the middle of a river. A woman crying and asking her brother to swear that her son would live. Suffering and pain. A boy praying in the Heart Tree, craving for acceptance. 

Jon needed to let go of that state of self-pity and get back to what was important: the war against the dead. That he said to himself, as he ignored Davos's words and returned to the only place that provided him with the sweet calm of nothingness itself. The top of the wall.

_Aemon Targaryen_. Your name is the name of the man that lived with you all those years. The man who gave Jon advice without knowing they were related. That they were family.

It took everything from him so as not to throw himself over the edge and leave everything behind. It was worse than being the son of a whore, of an unnamed woman. This truth he had craved for so long has ruined him. He wanted to return to unconsciousness, to be ignorant of the whole he represented.

When he had no more tears to shed, he decided that he would ask Bran to swear this secret to his grave. Jon had no intention of taking what was not his, so he would go back to Winterfell and do things right. He would be the king he had to be and, in the miraculous case that the Night King and his army were stopped, he would go into exile and would never cross this side of the wall again.

As he crossed the bridge back to the surveillance box, he heard a distant sound like a crow that made him tremble. No. The wall was shaking. The mist that covered the space did not allow him to see clearly but he could catch a winged shadow approaching. A shadow that grew and grew, to the point that Jon fell to the cold ground to protect himself from his landing, feeling again how everything around him was shaking.

A dragon. 

When he raised his eyes to face the beast, he found its nostrils opening and closing as it smelled like it was its prey. Its red eyes stared at him as if the creature had not swallowed in days.

A soft voice soothe him. Not to him but to the dragon. She was speaking in words Jon had never heard before and as she did so, he stood on his feet again and took advantage, in an act of deep disdain for his own survival, to knead the dragon's skin with his hand.

"Are you Lord Commander?" 

Jon looked up, catching sight of a handful of white that contrasted with the black of the beast but faded into the white of the surrounding environment.

An angel, he thought without further ado.

"Aye," he replied, unaware of what he was responding to.

"Lord Eddison Tollett?"

"Jon Snow."

"Pardon me?"

"My name is Jon Snow."

Then he saw her. Behind the long spines of the black beast was the so called Mother of Dragons. It could not be any other.

"Jon Snow?" she asked, confused, "Like the name of the King of the North?"

"In the North," Jon corrected her, just then realizing between the fear and the awe he's been talking nonsense. "I am the King in the North."

"Are you Lord Commander _and_ King in the North?"

"No, I--I'm sorry, your grace."

Daenerys Targaryen looked over where his hand met her dragon's snout, this one doing nothing to stop him from touching him. Mayhaps he's waiting for her command, he thought. 

He saw her smiling. 

"You are a bold man, Jon Snow, I recognize that. My name is Daenerys Targaryen. And I am the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost added Bran telling Jon that his parents were married but then I remembered that it is Sam who provides Bran with this information, which hints that Bran can only access fragments of the past when an outside source provides him with the knowledge of these memories. 
> 
> EDIT: I fixed that. Jon knows they were married.
> 
> I am sorry for the lack of transition between scenes but it is not a linear story at the moment. The events in King's Landing take place while Jon goes to the wall and meets Bran. It's not that Daenerys arrived at the Wall the same day that she talked to Arya.
> 
> I only just realized that I write in POVs, so I'm going to point out the names of the characters so you have a better idea of who POV I'm writing.


	5. Ice and Fire

**IV**

**Ice and Fire**.

**JON**

"Thank you," Queen Daenerys said when Edd handed her a tankard with some kind of hot brew she tested without hesitation. She looked like a small creature curled up in a seat and covered in heavy fur. By Jon's command, Ghost placed at her feet and she seemed barely impressed by his companion. She came flying in a whole dragon, after all, he thought. 

"It is my honor, your Grace," the acting Lord Commander of the Watch response was sweetened with improper reverence. 

Daenerys Targaryen was at the Wall. It sounded like a madman's tale but he was not the only witness. The few sworn brothers who remained in Castle Black, his small entourage of soldiers from the North, and Ser Davos had also seen her heavenly image mounted on the infernal beast landing on the outskirts of the castle, after leaving a stunned Jon up there in the surveillance box. 

"Is always this cold and dark here?" she asked, nonchalantly chewing on the piece of stale bread the steward had provided for her.

"In the warmest days we have some sunlight at the top of the Wall, your Grace," Edd answered, standing right in front of her with folded hands and sympathetic predisposition. 

Daenerys looked around and meet his eyes briefly before blinking away and returning her attention to Edd. 

"I can only imagine. Essos, the place where I come from, is majorly a warm land." 

Edd turned to shoot a short glance at the sworn brothers that were allowed at Great Hall and that like him were drinking from her image.

"We can give you the tower of the Lord Commander, there's a stone hearth--"

"The Night's Watch does not meddle with affairs of the Kingdoms," Jon almost barked at Edd in an attempt to stop this display of worship. 

They all turned and fixed their eyes on him. 

Daenerys placed the tankard on the table and wiped her hands.

"I've haven't come to make the Night's Watch participant of the affairs of the Kingdoms, King Jon. I have come to see with my own eyes if the tale of _grumpkins and snarks_ , as my dear Lord Hand calls it, is true." She looked Jon straight in the eye and raised an eyebrow as a challenge. "That rule didn't seem to apply when this order received Stannis Baratheon, _though_." 

He made to reply but Edd interrupted. 

"You've come to see the dead? Did you hear of them?"

"I did, my Lord," she stated, turning her eyes on him, "In the south, certain events took place that led me to visit the Citadel, where I had an encounter with one of your members, Lord Samwell Tarly." She nodded toward Jon. "King Jon, you never provided an answer to my letter. Aren't you pleased with the terms I set out in it?"

Jon swallowed hard without looking away.

"As pleasing as your message was, your Grace, we are in the North and you in the South. Cersei on the throne, and this threat too close to my kingdom. You will understand why I couldn't alert my people of a mere possibility of--"

"Cersei Lannister no longer sits on the Iron Throne. I have taken King's Landing less than a moonturn ago." Her blunt tone brought out her resolution, and when she explained this, she looked into the eyes of everyone present, including Bran's, who was there as a curious bystander. "And my offer is not a mere possibility. I am ready to put all my resources at the disposal of the Northern Kingdom to stop this threat and prevent it from going even further south."

"You meet with Arya," Bran's voice cut in, making him jolt out. "She went to kill Cersei but she should've--"

"Arya is alive?" Jon interrupted, "And you knew it?"

"I only know what has happened," his little brother, turned into an ancient being magical creature said. "She mentioned King's Landing. I have looked into the past to see it." 

Jon only could blink, standing still with his body unable to move.

"It's true I met Lady Arya Stark," Daenerys spoke behind him, prompting him to turn around and face her. "She was healing from her wounds inflicted by the fire--"

"Fire? Did you _burn_ King's Landing?" it didn't mean to sound an accusation but bloody gods if it sounds so.

"No, I didn't, King Jon," she replied with tempered words, "Cersei meant to burn the city and blame me for it. Caches of wildfire rest on the foundations of the city. My father's legacy, sadly. Cersei already used it to blow the Sept of Baelor." 

"It's true," Bran added. 

Still stunned to hear that his little sister was alive, Jon headed for the entrance so he could get some air. As he crossed the courtyard, he looked towards the Lord Commander's tower where he had formerly resided. On its roof, the black dragon lay curled up looking up at the sky. The beast lowered his eyes to meet his and there it seemed to be emotions in them.

**ARYA**

"Do not speak," she warned Gendry.

After the brief reunion, he told her that he had been summoned --obliged-- to attend at Daenerys Targaryen's court. Honestly, she wanted to leave King’s Landing and set off towards the North as soon as possible to reunite with what was left of her family but Arya could not leave Gendry alone in this situation. Remembering how in the past she saw helplessly how the red priestess took him away, got her with her feet on the ground.

Gendry nodded, overwhelmed by the whole scenario.

The door behind them opened and she immediately recognized the two figures who walked through it. Not because she had the best of memories --which she most likely did--, but because of the particular aspect that made those two, stand out from the crowd.

Lord Varys, the spider and Lord Tyrion Lannister, the dwarf.

"It's a pleasure to count on both your presences, uhm..." Tyrion Lannister babbled as he took the elegant chair that most likely belonged to the Queen. "My name is--"

"Tyrion Lannister. Lord Varys. Both of you, the worst type of shit this place has ever known," Arya hurried in.

Tyrion grimaced.

"That's a strong opinion for someone so young," he commented. "We came to think that at best, you were dead, Arya Stark. I'm glad we finally found you right where we lost you. As for you..."

"I am sorry, I--" Gendry stuttered when he was interpellated.

"You are the son of King Robert--Usurper King Robert Baratheon," Lord Varys finished saying.

"What?" Arya asked, appalled.

Arya looked at Gendry and he looked at her, his mouth open with words he couldn't seem to find. After it, he moved his eyes to the two men in front of them.

"The King didn't even know it. Neither did I until a woman, a witch, told me."

"Well," Tyrion said tilting his head, "I don't think the witch's testimony is going to make any difference for the Lords of Stormlands."

"Oh, but as soon as he set foot in the Stormlands, the people who knew Robert Baratheon as a young man will not have a doubt that this young boy is his stem," cut in the Spider.

They were talking to each other as if Arya and Gendry were not in the room.

"Enough! Neither of you is going to touch Gendry. He has the protection of the North!" she snapped hastily without thinking about what she was saying or what it implied. "My brother Jon is the King, and my sister Sansa is the Lady--”

"We don't want to hurt Gendry," the dwarf interrupted to calm her, "Queen Daenerys intends to meet a distant relative. Did you know, _Gendry_ , that the Targaryens and Baratheon are bound by dragon blood?"

That was information she vaguely remembered from her lessons with Master Luwin. 

"I am just a blacksmith, m’lords. Why would the queen want to have something to do with me?"

The dwarf and the spider looked at each other knowingly. 

"Queen Daenerys is not like the others. If you take the time to know her, you would be amazed at how much she ingratiates with all types of people, from bastards, eunuchs to dwarves," Tyrion replied.

"Also, Gendry,” Lord Varys added, “House Baratheon faces extinction. Your uncle Stannis perished in the North along with his family. Right now, you are the last scion of your house."

Gendry scoffed.

“My house?”

Tyrion cleared his throat.

"Queen Daenerys intends to make you _Lord_ Gendry Baratheon."

**DAENERYS**

"Is he always this sullen?" Daenerys asked once he had left the great hall. The question elicited a burst of laughter from the men of the Night’s Watch.

"And this is one of his good days," the Lord Commander replied.

She agreed to be given the most spacious tower in the castle, just because Drogon had already made his nest on the roof. She appreciated the inconvenience of the reception and went to the place to put her emotions in order. She was regretting her hasty decision making when she heard three knocks on the door that made her jump.

She looked carefully, unsure about taking the next step. Finally, she decided to answer the call. The cold of the dagger hidden in a scabbard on her thigh beneath her breeches never felt so real.

Behind the door was none other than the King in The North. She wondered if he would be bold enough to attempt something with Drogon up there. Probably yes, she concluded.

"Your majesty, I come to apologize for my behavior," he said, hands crossed back. "And if I have offended you in any way, I admit that it was inconsiderate of me--"

"I have received worse treatment in my life and given the circumstances of this meeting, I think it has not been so bad," She reassured him, lowering the arm that held the door open, inviting him inside. 

She sauntered the room that had been his as a former Lord Commander and went to sit on one of the chairs in each side of the desk. Unsurprisingly, he stepped inside and made the place his again, throwing logs in the fireplace to rekindle the flames. 

It was unconventional for two monarchs to leave out all formality and speak as common people would discuss the weather. She came not with this intention to the Wall and she was sure his advisor would soon call out his imprudence. 

"You are here to talk about your sister," Daenerys guessed and he looked over his shoulder with open mouth. "We only had a brief exchange. You'll be glad to know that she defends your crown and doesn't recognize me as her queen."

Needless, he hid his smile, then got up to walk to the desk and sit in the opposite chair.

"She is Princess in the North."

"I see."

"Is she well? Her wounds..."

"Wounds on the neck and part of the left side of her body," she hurried on, "She is going to live but it left quite a dramatic scar. That's what I was told the first time I ask the healers for her health. She seemed uncaring of it when I visited her." 

"That's Arya," he chuckled. 

Daenerys twisted her lip and looked down, then she cleared her throat.

"There's something else?" she asked.

He became aware of his detour and returned to himself.

"The Army Of The Dead is each day closer," he said in a struggled voice. 

"It seems so."

"Then is true? You are planning to bring the southern armies here?"

"It is in my intentions."

"But..."

"But my advisors rightly pointed out the generals of any other force would not believe it unless they see it themselves."

"They are real," he insisted as if she had said she didn't believe him. "People here will tell you. My brother Bran--"

"How many? How many soldiers does the Night King have?"

"A hundred thousand or something like that."

"That is a huge number."

"And each fallen soldier from our ranks is one more for theirs."

"Are you implying this threat is pretty much unbeatable?"

"I am being honest with you, your Grace."

Daenerys looked him straight in the eye with a tight smile.

"They say in the South, you the Starks are famous for your honor."

"I am not a Stark," he rapidly replied, "I am a Snow."

She took a deep breath. In his dark gaze, she could perceive that he really believed those words.

"You've come to see the dead," he continued saying, "You shouldn't. Even with your dragon...it will be dangerous."

"If I am sending my soldiers to face this unbeatable enemy...I must be certain of what they are facing. What kind of Queen I am if I am not willing to risk my life for my soldiers?"

"A queen who is alive."

She scoffed.

"Wouldn't you? Give your life so your people could have a chance?" Daenerys saw him straighten up with determination, the same stance she saw in Arya Stark. "I see," Dany asserted. She rose from her seat and walked to the door, opening it in a silent invitation to retire. "Tomorrow I shall depart. If I do not return, _celebrate_ , you'll hold independence a little bit longer."

**JON**

He immediately left the tower after that, and a loud thump behind him indicated he hadn't made the best impression on the Dragon Queen. _His aunt_. 

He trudged the bridge toward the room he shared with Bran and Ser Davos. He needed to put all his concentration on this task and put aside what Bran had mentioned to him. Looking back at the beast that rested on top of the tower roof protecting his mother, Jon felt once again ravaged by something he supposedly belonged to. I am not a Stark, he had declared so vigorously in her presence, but in his mind, he also said that he neither would be a Targaryen. He could not. Not after all his birth entailed. The shame brought on him and on his parents. _On Ned Stark_. 

He reached the room and met the expectant eyes of Ser Davos. Bran was lying in a chair in front of the window overlooking the courtyard. He paid no attention to his arrival as if he were concentrating on something else.

"And?" Davos ventured, sitting on his bed, hunched with his elbows on his knees, and waving his hands. "What happened?"

Jon spoke about the meeting and what she came to do. He didn't dwell on details, like how her hair looked remarkably otherworldly at close quarters or how her face looked like porcelain in contrast to the darkness of Castle Black. Not that it really mattered but it was thoughts that crossed his mind whilst in there.

"That was it? Did you ever speak to a woman, son? Didn't you even try to warm her heart?"

Jon squinted at Ser Davos.

"I don't understand what else you wanted me to do."

"Everything that is happening seems incredible to me as well, but you cannot stay stagnant. If what you tell me is true, then it is essential to convince her not to do something mad. If something happens to Daenerys, everything is lost. She is the one with the resources and the dragons."

"She seems like a woman determined to follow her own instincts. I don't know what else I could do." He went to sit on the edge of his bed. "If she goes, then I shall go as well."

"Son, do I have to remind you that you are a King?" Ser Davos insisted.

"That doesn't matter!" He looked to where Bran was. "The North can take that title from me as soon as Bran crosses the barbican."

"Without offending my lord," Ser Davos said after scoffing. Bran nodded in agreement. "Jon, you were not exactly chosen for being a trueborn son of your father."

I am not, he thought. I am not a son of Ned Stark, at all. 

"They chose me because they _think_ I'm the son of Ned Stark."

"And aren't you?" 

Jon looked at his brother again --cousin-- but refused to share the secret with his Hand. Not yet, not now, perhaps never.

"I am a bastard," he finally said.

"You know it doesn't matter."

"It matters to me."

* * *

**DAENERYS**

The next day, when light is barely out, Daenerys woke up with a racing heart and Drogon shaking on the ceiling. Again she had dreamed of that image of ice and fire. She went to the fire, placed a hand there, and watched as the flames danced around her indifferent skin.

She took a big breath.

I'm still alive, she thought. The fire lives in me.

Then she dressed in her heavy coat and the delicate armor around her belly and chest. She traced the knife on her thigh with and rested her hand there pondering its use. She got rid of the doubts and walked to the great hall where she supposed the acting Lord Commander would be.

Instead, she found Jon Snow.

"I assume Your Grace has come to bid me farewell," she said with a teasing tone. He obviously didn't understand it that way.

"I will go with you, your Grace--" he announced.

Daenerys scoffed.

"Before you can argue me, be reasonable. We are talking about something that you have never faced before."

The idea struck her as ironic, but she kept her expression firm.

"Do you think this infamous Night King can fight my dragon?"

"I think it will be difficult for you alone to capture one of them."

Daenerys took a few steps back, looking at him stunned.

"I never said I was going to bring one of them with me," she said. 

He also looked at her in dismay, reframing his words.

"But you said the southern generals would not believe it unless they see it themselves."

Daenerys swallowed hard as that familiar bad feeling washed over her. 

"Besides, my brother Bran, he is special. He can guide us."

Daenerys stared at him for a second before shifting her gaze to the sky, gray and gloomy. Her chest clenched apprehensively. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and finally nodded.


	6. Beyond and Between

**V.**

**Beyond and Between**.

**BRAN**

**Castle Black.**

There was something strange happening that he did not quite understand. He felt that he could spread beyond and between everything that surrounded him and yet there was something that escaped his all-seeing. His mind shifted to the ravens hovering over the Wall, heading toward the Haunted Forest through the camouflage of the clouds. They were near but they were also waiting. Waiting for what? He wondered. 

"They're close to Eastwatch," he warned Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen. Ice and fire, someone else whispered inside his mind. The Dragon Queen looked at him with narrowed eyes, he returned a long stare. He tried to collect images of her past, memories that he now also possessed, but something was blocking him. Something that was protecting her from his sight. "I will show you the way. You will know when."

Ser Davos tried to stop Jon once more, begging Daenerys to be the voice of reason. Neither of the last two Targaryens heeded the sailor's pleas.

When they had left for Eastwatch, Bran tried again to sneak into the dragon's mind but there was no case. Maybe it was the bond with his mother or mayhaps dragons were just immune to his magic. Whatever was, he had to lead them to their encounter with the Night King. This meeting was inevitable. He could only observe, never intervene.

The future was written. The ink was already dry.

* * *

**SANSA**

**Winterfell**.

Her mind was focused on the numbers in front of her, sums, and assignments that she should have ready by the time Jon returned. Not that he was going to ask for it, as always he would just assume she took care of the problem while he was away, saving the world.

Almost as if sensing her thoughts, Lord Baelish entered the library.

"Long days have passed, my lady, with no news from your brothers," he commented as he took the seat across her. Sansa didn't bother to hide a sigh of discontent.

"It is not a short way to the Wall. If Bran is in the same condition in which he left Winterfell years ago, it will not be an easy way back either," she said.

She intended to continue with her chores but Lord Baelish annoyed her with his intrusive gaze. There were times when Sansa would rather withdraw than remain object of his attention.

"King's Landing has fallen," he announced after a moment of silence. 

Sansa abandoned her writing and looked at him in dismay.

"Does the Dragon Queen now sit on the Iron Throne?" she asked him.

"Everything returns to its place," he answered with a smile. "A Targaryen in King's Landing. A Stark in Winterfell...oh no, it's not a Stark. It is a Snow."

Baelish smirked. Sansa understood what he was trying to achieve.

"We have already discussed this, Lord Baelish."

"Have we? I have heard some unrest in the hallways. There are those who consider that the decision to name Jon king was a bit...rushed. Much more now considering that there is a rightful male heir."

"If turning me against Jon is your goal--"

"My goal is to open your eyes, my lady. We are on a board. And players are moving."

Sansa nodded for him to stop urging her. Still, she needed to have him around for these kinds of situations, more than ever now that Daenerys Targaryen had secured the Iron Throne for herself. An invasion from the south was more real than ever. Jon hated politicking and the matter would be left adrift if it were up to him.

Everything relied on her, as always.

* * *

**BRIENNE**

She deflected an attack from Ser Podrick and pushed him onto his back to the ground. _Dead_ , she growled at him with her sword at his neck. He responded with a shake of his head and rose again. Brienne sighed. Good lad, but he lacked a warrior spirit.

She heard someone clear throat from behind. Brienne turned and found Lady Sansa, standing still waiting for an answer. So, she stood upright and made a slight bow. She was the sister of the King, after all and though not a princess she still deserved the treatment. 

"I need to ask you a favor," Lady Sansa said forthrightly. 

The young woman took her to her chamber to have a private conversation. The whole time Brienne looked to their flanks to see that they were not being followed by the vermin that Petyr Baelish was. Only when in the safety and privacy of the lady quarters, Brienne relaxed. 

"I am at your service, my lady," she said 

"This is more than a service," Lady Sansa answered as she paced the room with a worried mood. "You are from Tarth. Your father...what crown does he answer to?"

It had been so long since she had been home that the mention of it took her by surprise. Brienne stopped to think about it, and knowing her father well, and hoping he had done it for his own good, he most likely had taken the most cautious decision. 

"Cersei I suppose. Is that a problem, my lady?"

Lady Sansa stopped and stared at the ground as if there was something interesting there. Brienne followed her gaze to only found nothingness. 

"Daenerys Targaryen dethroned Cersei Lannister."

Brienne took a sharp breath.

"Is she dead?"

"I'm not sure. You told me once that Ser Jaime had sent you to protect me. Right?"

Brienne blinked away. It was one of those things she wouldn't have hidden from the young Lady, so she nodded in confirmation. Sansa didn't bother to hide that the notion caused her conflict and disgust to some extent, and Brienne couldn't blame her for it after everything she'd been through.

After a long and awkward silence, Catelyn Stark's daughter who was the spitting image of her late mother, walked a few steps close to her looking her straight in the eye.

"I think you and I have something in common, Lady Brienne. The Lannister brothers," she said, startling Brienne a bit. "I need you to go to King's Landing."

* * *

**ARYA**

**King's Landing**.

"How...how's that you ended up being Robert's son?"

The dwarf took it upon himself to make leaving the castle impossible for her for the time being. She and Gendry were taken to apartments that she vaguely remembered from all those years ago. The poor man seemed fascinated by everything he saw and made comments comparing it with Dragonstone, the place where he had been taken by the red witch at that time. 

"His bastard," Gendry corrected her, inspecting an armor that lay exposed for observers. "He was known for his visits to brothels. And my mother may was one of his whores."

He spoke so lightly about the matter that she couldn't say if he was happy or upset about it. In fact, he seemed ambivalent and plainly curious. 

"You aren't actually believing in these people's words, right?"

"I shouldn't," Gendry replied looking over his shoulder at her. Arya looked down. "Last time it didn't work well for me."

He spoke with such a taciturn tone that Arya realized it was something terrible for him. Probably not the kind of thing he wanted to deal with again.

"I'm so sorry--" 

"For what?" he blurted out, "I was who didn't want to escape with you. D'ya' remember?"

He was smiling kindly. She was surprised at how youthful he looked when he was sort of happy.

"Where were you by the way?" he asked before she could answer.

Arya took a deep breath in. 

"Braavos. Essos."

Gendry lifted up an eyebrow, turning around and pacing the room in search of more wonders maybe.

"That's far away from here," he commented. 

"It is," she agreed, following with her eyes. Finally, she concluded one thing, "I'm happy you are alive, Gendry," she said to him wholeheartedly. 

Gendry returned one of those smiles.

"I am happy you are alive as well, m'lady." He frowned and looked down to the floor. He was smirking now. "My prince--" he began but Arya cut him off before he could finish that.

"Do not call me that. Ever," she warned with a grin. 

* * *

**JON**

**Castle Black**.

He stood still where Queen Daenerys indicated him to. She then walked a few steps ahead of him and remained there waiting for her dragon to obey the order to land. Jon let out a sigh. A dragon. He was about to climb a fucking dragon. If that wasn't enough to stun him, the image of Daenerys Targaryen was. She was the sort of thing one got to see very rarely in life. 

"His name is Drogon," she said, her back on him. "I named him after my husband."

Husband, Jon thought. She was married? No, he remembered immediately. For some reason, he knew she was married off early to a Khal Dothraki. 

"He seems ferocious," Jon only commented. He was curious about what had been of her life but it didn't feel right to ask her about it. What if she thought he was trying to take advantage of the situation?

She turned a little, not looking at him but half her face exposed. She was smiling. Or was she smirking?

"He is," she said. 

At that moment, _Drogon_ came down from the sky landing with a leap that made the earth reel under his weight. This time Jon didn't duck in fear.

"And what if he doesn't want me on top of him?" he asked Daenerys after she told him that it was safe to approach. 

"Then, it was a pleasure to meet you, Jon Snow," she replied. 

He almost smiled. Then, Jon stepped forward when she was already on the back of the beast, looking equally fascinating as if dragon and mother were the same kin. They were, somehow. The weight of his thoughts washed over him again. He was not this. He was no dragon.

Hearing the dragon's soft purr, Jon climbed awkwardly up its hard, hot scales. In the freezing weather, it was like being hugged by fire. 

"Alright," Daenerys said, looking over her shoulder to him. "Hold on tight on his spines. Don't ever loosen your grip until we land."

Jon was quick to grab onto one of the jagged structures in front of him. Then he heard Daenerys speak in that strange language that he could only assume was High Valyrian. 

A sudden backward movement that nearly knocked him over and then slammed forward again. Jon closed his eyes tightly as he clung to the dragon's spine. When he felt only the sound of the wind in his ears, he opened his eyes and looked to the side. They were in the air and Daenerys was looking over at him.

**Eastwatch By The Sea**.

"For fuck's sake, Little Crow!" Tormund shouted when they were received at the gates of the castle of Eastwatch by him and other people, mostly wildlings. "I just shat on my pants!"

Daenerys had landed at a safe distance of the castle, probably thinking it prudent. However, she didn't count on a small settlement of people who ran in terror towards the fortress the moment they saw the dragon. When they came down, he made an attempt to help her out, but she looked at him with a quizzical stare and dismissed him.

"Tormund. We have no time," Jon replied, walking in the courtyard. They were soon surrounded by people who stared at them in amazement and fear. He stretched out an arm toward Daenerys. "This is Queen Daenerys Targaryen," he introduced her, turning around to do the same with his wildling friend, "He is...Tormund Giantsbane." 

"It's a pleasure, my Lord," Daenerys said with a soft voice, walking forward. Tormund's eyes widened, surely also fascinated by the uniqueness of her beauty.

"Lord? I am no lord!" he protested after it, "Is that your dragon?"

"He is my son."

"Your son? Are you a mother of a dragon?"

"Of dragons."

"There's more than one?"

"There is no time for that," Jon cut in their exchange, walking to the armory. He had to communicate the plan with Tormund and recruit people who were willing to help with the expedition. "We've come to do something."

Quickly and summarily, he explained the details of their plan. Tormund questioned what the need was when he had already convinced the Dragon Queen to help them.

"It is a stupid idea," Tormund said.

"People from the south still believe that here in the Wall there's only outlaws and wildlings," Daenerys cut in, "Or so I have been told. The truth is that I have been here in Westeros very short time. It would not be wise to start my reign by spitting fire on the troops to force them to come to the North to fight." She looked over at him. "Especially if the North calls itself an independent kingdom."

Jon wanted to argue this was everyone's war. But she was right about forcing the troops up here.

"How many queens are out there now?" Tormund asked.

"It's just me, for now," Daenerys replied. "And a King," said, pointing out at Jon, adding softly, "For now."

"If you are the one with the dragons...what happened with the one who fucks her brother?"

"She is my prisoner."

"Speaking of prisoner. May I show you something?"

Tormund led the two of them to the ice cells, where three figures were lounging in the shadows.

"My scouts found them a mile south of the Wall. Said they were on their way here," he explained.

Jon leaned in to look at one of the men whom he recognized by the scars on his malformed face.

"You're The Hound. I saw you once at Winterfell," he said.

"They want to go beyond the Wall too," Tormund added.

Another of the figures, a man with an eye patch, hurried to say, "We don't want to go beyond the Wall, we have to. Our lord told us the great war is coming." His face turned to look at Daenerys. "The mother of dragons," he whispered loudly. After that he let out a joyous laugh. "Here we all are at the edge of the world at the same moment heading in the same direction for the same reason. There's a greater purpose at work and we serve it together whether we know it or not. We may take the steps but the Lord of Light--"

"For fuck's sake, will you shut your hole," The Hound finally voiced his mind. "Are we coming with you or not?"

"Don't you want to know what we're doing?" Daenerys asked them, unmoved by these people's words and bluntness.

"Is it worse than sitting in a freezing cell waiting to die?" said the third figure.

Jon nodded. Looking at Tormund and Daenerys to let them know that he had made up his mind.

"He's right. We're all on the same side," he proclaimed as he took the keys of the cell from Tormund's grip. 

* * *

**DAENERYS**

**Beyond the Wall**.

Daenerys landed near a river, following the ravens that hovered on the shores. A sign from Jon's brother, telling them that while the dead were close, this was where they should wait and be prepared. The men behind her glided gracelessly, complaining in their with their thick accents that they had lose their balls. She felt Drogon protesting beneath her.

Calm, my child, she tried to soothe him. She herself was filled with terrible foreboding.

While the man who went by the name of Beric Dondarrion was in charge of lighting a fire with his flaming sword, Daenerys leaned against Drogon's scales, apart from the rest. She stared at Jon, wondering what was on his mind at the moment. She had never met a man so difficult to read. Her eyes had stayed on him for so long that at one point he realized she was looking at him, and she had to move her eyes quickly back to the fire.

It was after a long time that someone deigned to speak to her. It was the giant killer, his wildling friend.

"I've killed a giant once--," he started to say but was rapidly interrupted by Jon, who was walking near them.

"Tormund, no," he warned.

"I want to hear it," Daenerys protested. 

"It's not a pleasant story," he explained.

"I've heard many of those," she shrugged off, looking over at Tormund. "Please, continue Lord Giantsbane."

Jon left and his friend started again. As he pointed out, the story was quite unpleasant but amusing overall. Daenerys accompanied the wildling's enthusiasm with a polite smile.

"Oh. It was all about that. I have a story too! Have you heard about basiliks?"

"No. What is that?"

"It is like...a big, poisonous lizard with six legs." 

His eyes widened with awe.

"Have you seen one of them?"

"No yet. But I will travel to Sothoryos someday and meet them." 

"What's that place?"

"It's a continent. Very south from here."

She told him the stories of Essos. Not all obviously but some of which she could still hold a hint of a memory. The man laughed and looked at her even more rapt.

It was almost nightfall when she heard snippets of a conversation between the man with the eyepatch and Jon.

"Why?" the King in the North asked him, and he seemed bewildered.

"I don't know."

"That's all anyone can tell me, I don't know. So what's the point in serving a god that none of us knows what he wants."

"I think about that all the time. I don't think it's our purpose to understand except one thing. We're soldiers. We have to know what we're fighting for. I'm not fighting so some man or woman I barely know can sit on a throne made of swords."

Dany smirked at that but kept herself ignorant of their exchange.

"So what are you fighting for?"

"Life. Death is the enemy. The first enemy and the last."

"But we all die."

"The enemy always wins. And we still need to fight him. That's all I know." 

Daenerys huffed loudly. 

"Why did you fight for the slaves, Your Grace?"

She lifted her head and looked at them with a raised eyebrow. She swallowed hard at the sudden question, shaking her head a little.

"I saw injustice. And...I had the power to do something about it," she answered, unnerved and fidgeting with a loosened strand of her hair. "They couldn't defend themselves but I could, so I did."

Beric seemed satisfied with the answer. He turned and talked to Jon again.

"You and I wont find much joy while we're here. But we can keep others alive. _We can defend those who can't defend themselves_."

"I am the shield that guards the realms of men."

He heart clenched. She looked up at him when he said that and saw the certainty on his face.

"Maybe we don't need to understand any more than that. Maybe that's enough."

Jon's eyes met hers.

"Aye. Maybe that's enough."

Daenerys decided she needed to walk a bit so she wouldn't feel the cold pinning her down. She returned to Drogon so that his scales would provide that much needed warmth.

"You said...traveling to Sothoryos. How are you going to be Queen and a wanderer?" 

She was startled to hear Jon's voice come from behind her. Given the low lighting, she could hardly see him.

"I can be both," she answered, "I have dragons."

"Excuse me, your Grace, but your family hasn't be that kind of rulers exactly."

And what do you know about that? She wanted to question him but realized that at that moment he knew more than she did. He was a fucking Stark.

"Have you ever visited King's Landing, Your Grace? Have you seen the Dragon Pit?"

"No," Jon denied.

"Well," she looked over at Drogon, "I am going to assume from your comment that you have received formal education, King Jon. I have not. The day we took King's Landing, while part of Red Keep was burning, I took my children there because according to the stories of my brother, it was a wonderful place that housed our family's dragons. But all I found were tiny dragon bones." She stroke the hot scales of Drogon. "Dragons are no slaves. My children won't put in chains again."

He held his eyes on her and for a moment it felt too much, so she averted his gaze. 

He looked like he was going to ask something else when they were startled by Drogon's scream while they were swallowed up by a sudden blizzard.

* * *

**TYRION**

**King's Landing**.

"Any news of our Queen?"

Tyrion lifted up his eyes from the documents he was reading. There were many things to organize before the gathering of the great lords and ladies of Westeros in a Great Council Daenerys had summoned. 

"Nothing," he replied, glancing at his companion. Varys had half his body outside the window as he gazed at the view of the city below.

"She shouldn't have gone," he said in a disapproving tone. He shoved his body back inside. "And you should be the one to advise her against rash decisions like these."

Tyrion scoffed and shrugged off the matter.

"Daenerys is not a child that we can handle as we please, my friend. You better get along with that reality."

"And it worries me terribly," he bemoaned. 

His senses and best instinct sharpened at the feeling of certain mistrustfulness.

"Please don't start--"

"I'm just saying that sometimes her impulsiveness should be curbed. There's some juvenile defiance in her," he excused himself but Tyrion was clever enough to know it was never just about that. 

"Perhaps because she is a juvenile still."

"She is also a queen and a commander."

"What better way for her to show her compromise?"

"Her foolishness if something goes wrong up there could cost us everything."

The same fear haunted him but he would not admit it. First because it was absurd not to expect the only dragon rider in the world to ride her dragon and secondly because he did not want to let Varys be right. Daenerys was fine and was their best and only chance of a true change.

"Of all the kings you have served, how many of them have really been willing to put their own lives on the front line for the people? Sometimes I think that you insist on seeing only the bad in people."

"We know what is best for the Realm and we are willing to do what is necessary to guard it. Monarchs, for the most part, are blind to that truth."

Tyrion frowned at how he didn't say the people but the Realm. And what did that mean for him?

"If Jon Snow turns out to be as naive and honorable as his father was, Daenerys is going to bend him to her will."

  
"And what would be the problem with that? Better a Jon Snow than a Joffrey, right? We need a king consort not a king in full law."

"He is already a king in full law in his own kingdom. He's the only realistic and suitable option. We have to keep eyes on him, too."

"What you want is a man that could handle her temper, I understand well?"

"Our queen is fire and blood, what better than some ice to keep a balance?"

It wasn't hard for Tyrion to imagine Jon Snow falling for Daenerys. All men that knew her either loved her because of the uniqueness of her beauty or for the goodness in her heart. However, Jon was a family man and Daenerys didn't know what that entailed. Tyrion knew it from their close treatment and from the obvious lack in her that was reflected in the harshness of her judgment at times. An unfounded fear invaded him. What if Daenerys was the one who fell in love with him and he took advantage of this? 

He couldn't allow it.

In a way, the conversation with Varys made him realize that he couldn't leave things to chance. And he was determined to protect her from that harm. If there was one thing he deeply admired about her, it was her ability to overcome the apparent strength of the men around her. This because she understood and rejected the notion of being at the mercy of another will. And Tyrion would herald to keep it that way.

* * *

**JON**

**Beyond the Wall**.

His first instinct was to push Daenerys down with him but when he tried to reach her, she was gone. And around him he only heard guttural growls and clashing swords. He could barely open his eyes as memories of Hardhome raged through his mind. When he felt that there would be no escape, a blast of light illuminated the night. It was fire.

"Jon!" he heard Tormund's scream somewhere behind him.

He assumed that the dragon was in the sky. He couldn't imagine what could have caused the beast to be disturbed in such a way but slowly he came to the conclusion that they were not being attacked by the army of the dead. 

"Jon?" That voice made him blink out of confusion. It was Dany.

"Dany?" he answered but instantly realized that that was not her name. Why was he calling her that?

  
"Jon, get up, man!"

  
It was there that he came to his senses and straightened up. The whitish and cloudy sky indicated that it had already dawned.

"What happened?" He could only ask. 

Around him were gathered almost all the men who had come on the expedition. Almost, he guessed. His eyes had stopped searching for the others when he saw that Daenerys was safe.

"A bear. A fucking bear, can you believe it?" Tormund explained. 

"It came from nowhere," she said, and he could see how her features were affected as the horror settled. "It was dead. And alive. Undead."

"That thing tried to attack the dragon and that's why the he wreak havoc. For a moment we thought he had swallowed you up in all the confusion," Tormund continued.

  
"I had to reassure Drogon and I didn't realize that I had hurt you," she said in an apologetic tone.

Jon took a deep breath and ran a hand over his face. He supposed the dragon had struck him hard.

"Where is the bear?" he asked.

They told him that it immediately attacked one of the men. Thoros. The wound was fatal. Jon lamented it in silent thought. Then Drogon burned them two.

When Tormund got up and left just the two of them, he couldn't help but ask Daenerys, "Now do you believe it?"

She had a sorry expression on her face and he regretted that he sounded like he was complaining. Before any of them could say anything else, Tormund came back to warn about a group of walkers down the hill where they were. 


End file.
